FAD Magazine · April 10, 2026
Memory, Mortality and Meaning in the Work of Art Liard
By Tabish Khan
Leading London critic Tabish Khan reads Art Liard's still lifes as a contemporary memento mori — and an invitation to slow down and look closely.
Writing in FAD Magazine, Tabish Khan — art critic for FAD and Londonist, who reviews exhibitions across the capital every week — explored how Art Liard turns ordinary objects into meditations on time and mortality.
He moved through the work piece by piece: the scarf that carries "the memories of the person who wore it"; the fish on a surface, read as "a nod to the memento mori paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries"; a tree whose lifespan dwarfs our own; and a raven, that most intelligent of birds. Her simpler compositions, he noted, "remind us of the simple still lifes painted by the likes of Giorgio Morandi and Paul Cézanne."
They encourage slow-looking, asking to notice the subtle shadows that dance across the surface, the light it catches and the beauty in the everyday.
— Tabish Khan, FAD Magazine
On her roses, he described "heavy impasto to create a rich texture that makes you want to run your hands over them" — the hallmark of the Chronicles of Matter series.