www.louisebalaam.co.uk
If you like expressionistic landscape painting, then Louise Balaam’s work may really appeal to you. She uses natural colors to capture a tempestuous movement. With bold brush strokes and strong contrast, she creates an active, painterly surface that roils with thunderous motion.
Whether she paints land or sea, diagonal movements with broad brush strokes characterize her work. A very Baroque approach to painting, her work is full of drama, high contrast and turbulent movement.
She veers into more abstract work, characterized by more exaggerated movements and contrast. Boldness and passion reign throughout each image, capturing a vision expressed through forceful currents of undulating paint.
Beauty of natural forces abound and leave the view longing to dive into each painting’s force field of color and form.
Click on thumnails for enlargements
Artist Statement by Louise Balaam
My work is inspired by an emotional response to the natural world, in particular to the quality of light, which is a vital part of the mood of the paintings. I draw in the landscape and then paint intuitively in the studio, so that the work both has a sense of place, and yet can also evoke memories and personal interpretations in the viewer. There is a sense of intimacy and intensity, and the idea of a glimpse into a remembered reality. My paintings relate to the English landscape tradition – Constable’s oil sketches are an important influence.
I like the sensuality and depth of colour of oil paint, used in direct and gestural brushstrokes, which assert the materiality of the oil paint and of the painting’s surface. I often work in oil on panel, which allows me to scratch into the wet surface. The meaning of the work emerges from the language of paint, which is allowed to be itself before it is a description of something. I am fascinated by the capacity of paint to express things which cannot be put into words: a mysterious process takes place whereby the marks of the brush work on a subtle level, setting up an emotional and poetic resonance.
I paint intuitively, so the painting becomes an entity in its own right which starts to make its own demands – in a sense, it begins to answer back.
© Louise Balaam
Click on thumbnails to enlarge.
About Louise Balaam |
|
| Education | |
| 2005-7 | Christchurch University College, Canterbury |
| MA Fine Art | |
| 1997-2002 | Kent Institute of Art and Design, Canterbury |
| BA (Hons) Fine Art | |
| Solo Exhibitions | |
| 2015 | Cadogan Contemporary, London SW7 |
| 2014 | John Davies Gallery, Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos |
| 2012 | John Davies Gallery, Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos |
| 2010,2011,2013 | Cadogan Gallery, London SW7 |
| 2008 | Trinity Gallery, Tunbridge Wells |
| 2007 | “Response”, Ashford Library Gallery |
| 2005 | “A Sense of Place”, Portico Gallery, Sevenoaks |
| Selected Group Exhibitions | |
| 2015 | 20/21 Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London SW7 |
| 2008,9,10,13, 14 | Royal Academy Summer Show, London |
| 2014,15 | Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize Exhibition, Mall Galleries, SW1 |
| 2004-7, 2009-15 | New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London |
| 2004-2015 | Royal West of England Academy Open Exhibition, Bristol |
| 2014,15 | Summer Show, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall |
| 2014 | “Little Gems”, Mall Galleries, London SW1 |
| 2014 | “Quintet”, White Space Gallery, Totnes, Devon |
| 2014 | Joint show, Hilton Fine Art, Bath |
| 2012,2013,2014 | Josephine Harpur, Bury St Edmunds and Aldeburgh |
| 2012-15 | Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells, Kent |
| 2012,2014 | Hilton Fine Art, Bath |
| 2012,2013 | Russell Gallery, Putney, London |
| 2012 | 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Cadogan Gallery |
| 2009, 2011 | Threadneedle Prize Exhibition, London |
| 2005-11 | Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London |
| 2009,10 | Royal Society of British Artists, London |
| 2005-11 | Gallery shows, White Space Art, Totnes, Devon |
| 2009,10 | Two-person show, Ruthven Gallery, Scotland |
| 2007-11 | Group shows, Porthminster Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall |
| 2005-10 | Gallery shows, Alan Kluckow Fine Art, Sunningdale |
| 2007 | Contemporary Work on Paper Fair, Royal Academy, London |
| 2005, 2007 | Chichester Open Art Exhibition, Sussex |
| 2005 | Hunting Art Prize Exhibition, London |
| 2002-3 | “Fresh Art,” Islington, London |
| Prizes | |
| 2010 | Odin Trust Prize, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol |
| 2007 | Highly Commended, Chichester Open Art Exhibition |
| Memberships | |
| 2011 | Elected Academician of the Royal West of England Academy |
| 2011 | Elected Member of the New English Art Club |
Pink Cloud, Dartmoor
Drawing by Louise Balaam
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