Olympus OM707, Peter Liversidge. Courtesy Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art.

Julie Penfold crossed town to get to the Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art for a look at What You'd Expect, a collection of work by artist Peter Liversidge.

The glitz, glamour and desirability of globally famous products and media-inspired perceptions of the ‘wild-west’ are two major themes explored by artist Peter Liversidge in this thought-provoking exhibition.

On show at the Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art until January 29 2005, Liversidge's work takes globally renowned corporate insignia and consumer goods and recreates them in his own unique style.

He transforms them from their slick state of advertising perfection into childlike clumsy, obscure, untrustworthy icons.

As the artist notes: "I really am trying but I just can’t paint these products the way the manufacturers would like to see them."

The Dancing Horse, Peter Liversidge. Courtesy Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art.

Each is recreated in the artist’s own distinctive awkward idiom that contradicts the original’s ‘worth’. This treatment immediately undermines the slogans’ appeal and their automatic associations of quality and reliability.

Kodak is universally recognised as a premier camera, yet this rehashed logo offers a slanted, distorted image instead. It cries out that it is a fake or an imitation of the quality we expect from this manufacturer.

Similarly a Volkswagen sign is recreated to look a cheap almost second-hand used product, stripping it immediately of its iconic status.

Video cameras and global credit card brands such as American Express become clunky, cheaply constructed and their glamour and social status is stripped and replaced with a humourous, laughable element.

Nokia 3110 (2002) looks like a coloured brick - a million miles from a ‘must-have’ accessory. Diamond Ring XI resembles a plastic ring from a children’s arcade machine, such is the cheap gleamless image Liversidge depicts.

Boulders, Rocks and Stones, Peter Liversidge. Courtesy Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art.

The North Montana Plains are the other major subject of the artist’s scrutiny despite the fact he has never visited the rural parts of the state that he centres much of his work on.

His gentle humour pokes fun at the iconic ‘wild west’ created by filmmakers and his use of titles adds a further tongue in cheek reinterpretation.

Boulders, Rocks and Stones sheds our pre-conceptions of the area’s grandeur and glory and instead the scene becomes comically deflated, looking vast and empty. Giant vultures and herds of stampeding buffalo become tiny lost specks of paint smothered in the gigantic skies.

Peter Liversidge has cleverly used this exhibition to enable us to look from an outsider’s point of view at just how much we accept ideas and ideals of what is classy, glamorous, must-have and luxurious.

His quizzical unpicking and reinterpretation of brands, reducing them all to a very ordinary look and value, will give everyone food for thought on how much we allow advertising and the media to shape our perceptions on what’s hot and what’s not.