In April, painter Louise Giovanelli will be giving an artist talk in the School of Arts. Louise has just returned from Florida where she completed a Master Artist residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Last year she was one of the 12 artists shortlisted for the prestigious Contemporary British Painting Prize 2017 through which she received a judges Special Commendation award.
Since graduating from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2015, Louise has received numerous awards including; The Leonard James Fine Art Prize, The Manchester Academy of Fine Art Award, and The Ken Billany Painting Prize and was recipient of second place in the ‘The Painted World’ Saatchi Art Showdown, Los Angeles.
In talking about her work Louise says..
My practice is informed by ways of looking and perceiving, with the act of looking itself as a kind of content. I employ cultural references, personal histories and excerpts from other art forms to investigate the languages and histories of painting. My approaches are often process led with an emphasis on surface quality and mark making. My ideas are increasingly visceral, unstructured and are gradually and intuitively distilled through an associative process of arranging, collaging and drawing prior to painting – providing scope for them to mature, fall away and settle. Although vague, this allows the possibility that something will be created rather than illustrated.
I am exploring some of the fundamentals of abstract painting within a figurative language – simplification, flattening and the tension between planes. I am interested in creating configurations with multiple intersecting under/overlaps and how this might allow my work to exist at an interchange between figuration and abstraction – where I believe painting is at its most vital and dynamic.
Giovanelli has also shown in a number of group shows such as In Residence The Griffin Gallery, London (2017) ‘BEEP’, Wales’ international painting prize (2016); ‘Institution / Outstitution’ , The International 3 (2016) ; Galerie Sarow, Pforzheim, Germany (2015). Solo shows include A Throw to the Side Warrington Museum and Art Gallery (2017) Prima Donna at International 3; From Here to Here Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool & Slow to Respond Touchstones Rochdale (2016)
University of Bolton Fine Art 