Background, place ancestry and knowledge
Lou has been making marks for nearly 50 years. Her Mum was a talented artist and she grew up in Cornwall surrounded by art and nature. Her love of art and her talent were there from early years and she won a prize for still life whilst still at junior school.
She trained formally as a graphic designer doing four years of extensive study at Falmouth School of Art before leaving Cornwall to work at the prestigous Conran Octopus Publishers (Terence Conran’s publishing arm) in London during the mid 1980s. She returned to Cornwall and has worked for 25 years as a designer before having process and knowledge unlocked by three years of study at Newlyn School of Art.
Place
Lou was raised less than a mile from the rugged North Cornwall coastline in the classic Cornish mining post-industrial landscape, where engine houses and spoil heaps are juxtaposed against the natural beauty of the sea, cliffs and surf. Wooded valleys and the softer South coast further influenced a desire to communicate vivid contrasts. Think of neutral tones and a shot of jewelist colour of the day-glo pink heathers and yellow gorse.
Cultural Influences
Music: – Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Dreadzone, Talking Heads and an ever morphing and evolving David Bowie.
Artistic: Matisse, Lisa Cogdon, Grayson Perry, Noel Fielding, Ken Done.
Broad and varied.
Film – Motor Cycle Diaries, The World’s Fastest Indian, The Straight Story.
Bit of a magpie for role models. Influences from broad and varied sources.
Travel
Lou has travelled extensively round the world on a Honda Dominator 650cc. and later on a Triumph Bonneville outfit with Sprocket her dog in the sidecar. The USA, South and Central America, Australia, India and Europe and North Africa. Absorbing the landscape, cultural and symbolism, “expanding her horizons” in all senses of the phrase.
Mexican ceramics, textiles, Guatemalan fabrics, clothing, poster designs. Even down to the colours of the red dirt and black volcanic earth contrasted with t-shirts worn by the locals. Lou loves colour and contrast.
Studio
Lou’s custom built south facing studio sits low in rolling expansive rural Cornish landscape, her horse in the field and sparrows nesting in the eaves, and like her childhood home, one mile from the north Cornish coast.
Research
Obsessive, immersive research, like a Jack Russel (Sprocket) with a bone, Lou doesn’t like to leave an idea without digging deep into all aspects.
Materials
Lou prefers board over canvas as she finds the act of striking a canvas almost takes away the energy due to the bounce of the canvas. Acrylic based pastel, charcoal and oils though sometimes finds oils frustrating due to timescale preventing the immediacy of water-based mediums.
Themes
From snails/fish to a Persian rug and the cultural meaning of all Lou’s work is as varied as her life experiences. Once she has an idea she will obsessively research culturally, naturally and symbolically and then play paint experiment, print, deconstruct, reflect and repeat until exhausted… and sometimes even remember to exhibit.
Aspirations
“The rediscovery of being “hands on”, after years of the sterile click of a mouse and the eye-strain of a screen has been a joy. You can’t smell, touch and feel in that world, almost like coming sensory deprivation. Reconnecting with my art being true to myself, fulfilment. Realisation that THIS is me and that’s fine and important.”