Who was Louise Bourgeois?
Louise Bourgeois was a fiercely intelligent woman with a firmly cemented reputation as one of the last century’s most significant artists. Her multimedia practice, exploring childhood, domesticity, nature and memory, spanned over eight decades.
Bourgeois was a volatile artist swinging between two complete polarities – she was formidable and fiery yet intensely vulnerable. Art was what kept her balanced; trauma was a driving force for her and printmaking, drawing, sculpture and installation were her different methods of exorcism. She was irreparably affected by her father’s infidelities, her mother's death and the family dynamics that shaped her as a young woman. She feared abandonment and felt displaced when she first moved away from her home in France, describing herself as a ‘lost girl’. Her simultaneously explosive yet sensitive artworks are profoundly human and remain totally original and completely inimitable.
Photo taken by Hidden Gallery