LOUISE RICHARDSON - Textile And mixed media artist

Louise Richardson makes objects with an ethereal quality that hint at the fact she almost became a ballerina.

It's difficult to know what to call Louise - she is more of an object maker than a straightforward artist. Her work has been described variously as dark, morbid. She created a frock made from delicate muslin which is stained and muddied. The bodice is covered in butterflies which look as if they have crash landed onto the fabric. The frock is pinned as if crucified behind glass and inside a white frame.

“I love the notion of the dirty angel - the kind of dark and light you get in fairytales. A lot of my work seems really beautiful but something much darker lurks beneath,” she quotes.

Louise almost became a ballerina - she was offered a ballet scholarship in Manchester but turned it down to do Fine Art - yet she has that ethereal quality ballet dancers seem to have.

Although she studied Fine Art at Norwich, painting was not for her. “Somehow the brush created too much distance between me and the canvas. And painting is very flat. I needed to get much closer to what I was doing. I wanted to make objects which exist in the real world rather than making a copy of something,” she said.

Louise uses heavy materials in her work especially lead which features in a lot of her outcomes. “I think there is a strange magical quality about lead because it has its own history. If you are dealing with lead over a period of days it scratches and gets marked. I love the weight of it. It's amazing because even though it is heavy, it is like fabric, so you can stitch it. I began to print images into the lead and use lead alongside more delicate materials so you get this amazing sort of alchemy going on.”

It's impossible to pigeonhole her work as anything specific. Everything has a hand-made quality to it  where the boundaries between textiles and sculpture seem to constantly collide. And there is a melancholy quality to Richardson's work which invites the viewer to take a closer look at their own emotions and feelings which is what is so interesting about her.

I love louise work on a personal level i have recently incorporated her in my homage project which i have recently finished in college, i took a lot of inspiration from her creativity methods in order for me to create my own outcomes. She is definitely one to watch out for and is always exhibiting somewere, so check her out. 

Her personal Blogspot can be found here.