The Irish artist explains how she was inspired by her father’s memory and children’s fables for her latest solo exhibition …
We Have You Right Where We Want You
How do you describe your work?
I am a multi-disciplinary artist with an art practice that includes painting, photography, film, sculpture, performance, and writing. For the past ten years, I’ve dedicated my practice predominately to painting. Something very exciting happens in me when I paint; it’s a pull on the senses and memory. I’m transported into another world or being, and I can lose myself for hours in my studio.
My practice is process-led; my most recent work explores the conflict between figurative representation and abstraction within painting. Within my process, I begin with my three “I” rule: inspiration, intuition, and intention. I get inspired by everything I see, hear or read, then I follow my intuition. I explore and experiment with everything that comes to mind, and I see where it takes me. At some stage, I bring intention into the equation – concrete decisions have to be made about canvases or the collection in order to produce a cohesive body of work.
I Promise The Sky Is Not Falling Down
How did you get into art: who or what was instrumental to your career?
I loved to paint as a child, but I also did a lot of other creative things. I made potions and perfumes from anything I found in the garden! I made my own clothes. I worked a lot with photographs and collages, creating wallpaper for my bedroom from thousands of cut-outs from magazines. My father was an architect by profession, but an artist at heart. He was a wonderful figurative drawer, and also painted in oils. We were surrounded by his work at home, and he has had a huge influence on me and my art practice.
As a teen, I never considered art as a career, so at 18 years of age I found myself doing a business degree in London. It was natural then that I fell into a business career and got sucked into the corporate world. However, travelling for work ignited my love for photography as I needed an outlet, so I took the camera everywhere with me.
Working in London definitely influenced me as an artist. I used to wander around galleries; my favourites were The Hayward Gallery, The Serpentine Gallery, and the original Saatchi Gallery in St John’s Wood, which was very cool and had a raw creative energy. If I had to name artists who influenced me then, I’d definitely choose two shows that I saw there: Anthony Gormley’s field of sculptures where the gallery was filled with 40,000 mini terracotta sculptures, and Richard Wilson’s oil flood where the gallery was literally flooded with oil. Both exhibits were mesmerising, and still stick with me. I remember thinking, “Wow, this is considered art, I love it!”.
In my late 20s, I found the courage to ditch corporate life, returned to Ireland, and went back to art school as a mature student. That’s when my art career began.
We Cannot See Ourselves Anymore
Where and how do you work?
I have a studio in the centre of Wicklow town, where I spend all my time. I start my day at 6am with a cliff walk and a sea swim. I then have a few hours being a mum, but once my kids are off to school I work from 9am to 5pm. Everything I do influences my creative process, whether it’s reading a book, watching a movie or play, listening to music or podcasts, walking my dog, swimming, or simply baking and cooking. It all plays a part in my art. I bring all of this into the studio. It’s all consuming.
All The Better To See You With
What was the starting point for your new exhibition?
Fifteen years ago, I collaborated with my father on an art project. He was dying at the time, so we made a decaying suspended sculpture held together by weight and balance. Various parts of the sculpture changed over time, and slowly it moved, but ultimately decayed. My father died six months after this work was exhibited. Over the past few years, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of collaborating with him again.
My new work “All That’s Left of You In Me” began with a collaboration again with my dad; researching his life drawings, abstract paintings, and his books from Rubens and Rodin. My process took me on a visual adventure, and these fantasy images are the result. I started with life drawing to follow in my father’s style of work, but I became increasingly influenced by the experiences of my children and their friends, growing up in a digital culture where nothing is controlled or monitored. This research took the project in a completely different trajectory.
Red Riding Hood Contemplates Swimming Instead
Storytelling and symbolism are integral to your work, what inspires you?
Fables and nursery rhymes, in particular works by the Brothers Grimm, became increasingly important to this work as the collection developed. I liked the symbolism of their dark stories for children, so these allegories fed into my thought processes. I invite my audience to enter my magical worlds, but I also force the viewer to question the representation of the nude within art, within contemporary culture, and within the world impacting our lives and the lives of our children.
The nudes in this work are deliberately featureless, cartoon-like, anonymous. With this almost androgynous visual, I’m trying to challenge the gaze and interest. They’re placed within abstract explosions of colour to symbolise secrecy and chaos within the unsupervised ersatz cyber world. The titles became more and more important. I reference fairytales, games and cyber porn code, allowing humour to infiltrate this otherwise serious topic.
I want my audience to think, “That’s nice” then read the title and say to themselves, “I need to look at it again to figure out what the artist is trying to tell me”.
The Digital Nanny Does It Again
What do you hope viewers take away from your work?
As artists, we can’t dictate what an audience will take form the work as interpretation is always subjective. I strive for my images to appeal visually, but also to cause conflict and confusion. I want my images to become a place for discussion and debate. This collection really makes you question what you’re looking at. There’s conflict between abstraction and representation; it’s not what people expect, so they’re forced to question it.
Need to know: Louise Cherry’s exhibition “All That’s Left of You In Me” is on at An Chead The Gallery, Kilkenny. www.an-chead-tine.com
Follow @louisecherrystudio on Instagram and visit www.louisecherry.com for more of her works.
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