Giovanelli, Louise
Louise Giovanelli’s alternative approach to painting encourages the viewer to switch between modes of looking. Her delicate, luminous works inject vitality into historical subjects, weaving together visual clues surrounding a specific moment or event. Her subject matter includes staged photographs, film stills, classical sculpture, and architectural elements. Cropped and isolated images are often repeated, dislocated from their origin and repositioned.
Arena, 2021, is painted directly onto the surface of a book. Alfred Hitchcock’s muse, the actress Tippi Hedren, is depicted glancing anxiously over her shoulder as though the viewer is approaching. Giovanelli’s canvases are as much concerned with the process of looking as they are with their motifs – enigmatically suspended narratives and painterly sumptuousness combine for a lingering, unsettling effect.
- Artwork Details: 24 x 18cm
- Edition:
- Material description: Oil on book
- Credit line: © the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and WORKPLACE
- Theme:
- Medium: Painting
- Accession number: ACC1/2021