Louise Blyton
1966
(Australia)
Australian
Australian abstract artist Louise Blyton employs precise, Reductivist methods to create lucid, harmonious, multidimensional artworks that embody the marriage of color, texture, and form. She lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Education
Blyton earned her Bachelor of Fine Art degree from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, in 1988. She is an alumni of the Factory 49 Paris Residency, Paris, France, Point B Studio Residency, New York, NY, and Redgate Studio Residency, Beijing, China. She was a finalist for the Blake Prize, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious art prize.
Technique
Blyton marries method with meaning by handcrafting each of her works using precise, Reductivist techniques. Her finished works—shaped, minimal canvases designed to hang on a wall—occupy a liminal zone between traditional painting and sculpture.
Their unpretentious simplicity belies the considerable care, time, and problem solving that goes into their construction.
Blyton first builds her forms from balsa wood, then covers the wood with linen glue and carefully applies the hand-cut linen in the simplest possible way, so that folds and seams are all but eliminated. Seeking the most straightforward possible expression of colour, she carefully applies acrylic paint into the untreated linen surface, building up to 20 coats of very thin matt paint to achieve the same saturation as her previous works with raw acrylic pigments.
The patience and focus that are essential to her technique emanate in the quietude of the finished works.
Inspiration
Precision and focus are a big part of what inspires Blyton, as is evident in the care she takes at every stage of her process. It is not only physical method that matters to her, however. She is also motivated by the meditative aspect of the search for natural beauty.
Throughout the creation of a work, the relationship between light, shadow and colour evolves, and the character of the form changes as the texture of the raw linen negotiates with that of the painted areas. This exercise is as much about the the coming together of formal elements as it is about the transcendence of raw materials into an aesthetic object capable of projecting meaning into a physical space.
Artist'statement
“I’m always looking for a kind of quietness and harmony when making my works, even if the colour being used is loud. It’s the accidental beauty in nature that really captivates me. A small shadow from a leaf across the pavement from above. A reflection of a puddle. Just nature in everyday life. It’s a reminder that you can view the world differently.”
Exhibitions
Blyton has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world.
Recent exhibitions include Little Daydreams (petites reveries), at Factory 49 Paris, France; All the Birds are Singing, at Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, USA; Drawing Now Paris, at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at MECA, Portland, ME, USA; and ICONS W\ 13, KNO (Kyiv Non Objective), at Mikhail Bulgakov Museum, Kiev, Ukraine.
