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22/7/22 -7/8/22
Ellie Hoskins (b. 1995) is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer from Cumbria, now based in Liverpool. Her work is diaristic, frank and funny, combining slapstick millennial nihilism with an immersion in the rituals and details of everyday working life. OUTPUT is delighted to welcome Ellie for her first solo presentation Everything! Is! Futile! for which she is currently working in-situ in the gallery, creating an installation of text works and sculpture around a family of papier-mâché homunculi.

Hoskins’ work combines lineages of contemporary art and culture - sad, lumpy figures reminiscent of Maria Lassnig or Louise Bourgeois sip cans of lager, while inspirational Instagram quotes are replaced by seedy confessions or suburban existential angst.

The artist explains; “I think what I’m mostly inspired by is content that comes from a very human place, like proper gut-level feelings expressed successfully enough to be gut-wrenching when communicated to someone else. And so when it’s consumed you feel less alone”. Hoskins captures moments of private absurdity with self-deprecating clarity, emphasising their universality as she brings them out into the light.

This search for communality led Hoskins to create and lead the one-year unofficial online art school Phlegm, which culminated in an exhibition at The Royal Standard in 2021. Other recent projects include a text installation on the exterior of Bluecoat and Broken Little Things, a collection of short text fragments for Montez Press.

Ellie Hoskins - Everything! Is Futile! will have a launch event from 6pm - 8pm on Thursday, 21st July. The exhibition continues until August 7th.

Instagram: @elliehosk
Substack: elliehoskins.substack.com
Q&A WITH ELLIE HOSKINS
You came to Liverpool for University and have stayed on for five years since graduating - what is it about the city that attracts you?

I wanted to choose somewhere relatively close to my girlfriend at the time, but she ended up dumping me before I’d even started. So that was fun. It’s mostly the people that I love here. I stayed for them, but also because I didn’t want to go back to where I grew up, which is a small factory town that would have made trying to be an artist or writer much, much harder.

There is a thread of consistency running through all of your work, despite the range of disciplines and materials - a mixture of depressing jokes and slow-motion slapstick tragedies. Has this always been the case?

I mean, it depends how far back you go. I think I started to find my voice on my foundation year, but I took everything a lot more seriously back then. There’s a meme I shared the other day, a pixelated drawing of someone spewing, and the text reads “remembering when I was serious, when I could have been silly”, and that’s me when I’m thinking about my old work that took itself too seriously. I got more playful in uni, but I think it’s only quite recently that the practice you describe was properly solidified. I think I realised the world was depressing enough without my sad, un-redemptive work. And so I forced myself to consider how I could remain true to my feelings and emotions, whilst conveying them in a way that offered something more than misery to the people I was with.

You’ve mentioned Louise Bourgeois as an influence and lots of writers, but I’m curious about the look of this exhibition, which seem to owe more to non-art influences: animation, meme culture etc. Could you explain how you landed on this aesthetic?

Yeah I love Louise’s aesthetic but that’s not the aspect that influences me. It’s more her philosophy, her approach to making and working through feelings. I also admire how she can work across so many mediums and yet you could still stand in front of any of her works and know it was made by her just based on her touch, her artistic voice. I think when it comes to my own aesthetic, which I agree owes to meme culture and animation, I’m just speaking in the language that I know. And that I feel other people will enjoy. As much as I wish I could be like, oh I make art for myself I don’t care about what anyone thinks about it, it would be a lie. I make art because I feel like there’s something I need to communicate, and so naturally I find myself communicating via the most accessible channels I’ve encountered. I grew up in a household and a town where high-brow, ‘fine’ art basically didn’t exist. What did exist was television, and the internet.

Your work is very rooted in the everyday, and it seems appropriate that many of these sculptures were made in your kitchen. Do you prefer working at home to using a studio, and if so, why?

Studio. I have absolutely and whole-heartedly hated making these sculptures in my kitchen. Cos it’s also my living room. And sitting looking at the mess and smelling the vinegary-floury paste that I used to make the papier mache with made me want to scream on a daily basis. But I haven’t felt able to justify renting a studio since graduating (I decided I hated art and didn’t want to play anymore). Also, like, I think I’m just greedy. If I have a studio it needs to be huge, because I’ve watched youtube interviews with rich artists and now I don’t want to settle for anything less than a warehouse. I just don’t enjoy making small things. I release a lot of frustration when I’m making sculptures and I need to use my whole body, not just my fingers. So yeah, if I’m gonna commit to making more of them I’m gonna need some serious storage.

What is your biggest fear, as an artist?

Everyone hating me and thinking my work is shit because it has like, zero production value and doesn’t really ‘mean’ anything. I’m confident that a lot of people feel this way. But I probably think their work is too serious and boring, so yeah. Be reet.



Wall text reads: 'WHAT AM I TRYING TO SAY? I'M TRYING TO SAY I'M TIRED! OF THE HIDEOUS SHITNESS OF EVERYTHING! OF FEELING LIKE A LIFELESS LUMP OF BEIGE SHIT! I WANNA FEEL UNHINGED! RADGE! I WANNA FEEL LIKE LANA DEL REY WHEN SHE SAID I AM FUCKING CRAZY, BUT I AM FREE!'