Louise Giovanelli：Paintings 2019-2024
Overview
From 23 March, 2024, He Art Museum (HEM) presents Louise Giovanelli’s first solo exhibition in China, covering the artist’s practice since 2019. Louise Giovanelli draws inspiration from a variety of sources, from Renaissance art to vintage film stills, often focusing on the staging of rituals and performances. Relating the contemporary to the historic, and the sacred to the profane, Giovanelli considers the significance and history of painting as a system of representation, exposing how the materiality of paint can carry and convey meaning.
Within each series, including staged photographs, film stills, classical sculpture, and architectural elements, Giovanelli repeats her motifs, and certain paintings appear nearly identical, excepting slight alterations of the composition or tonality. From religious iconography to the aesthetic of stage performances, Giovanelli attempted to explore how isolating a moment or suspending a scene in time can alter and affect the meaning of the image. The recurring motif of draped theatre curtains constructs both space and atmosphere, simultaneously absorbing and radiating light to create moments where their material quality is intensified and abstracted. She navigates different modes of picturing and approaches to painting, repositioning familiar imagery by withholding or emphasizing details in combinations that require deep contemplation.
Her jeweled palette and tightly framed scenes compel us to linger on the image, slowing down the act of looking at something close to a meditative encounter, thus focusing on the detail, texture, and painterly quality of the work.
Within each series, including staged photographs, film stills, classical sculpture, and architectural elements, Giovanelli repeats her motifs, and certain paintings appear nearly identical, excepting slight alterations of the composition or tonality. From religious iconography to the aesthetic of stage performances, Giovanelli attempted to explore how isolating a moment or suspending a scene in time can alter and affect the meaning of the image. The recurring motif of draped theatre curtains constructs both space and atmosphere, simultaneously absorbing and radiating light to create moments where their material quality is intensified and abstracted. She navigates different modes of picturing and approaches to painting, repositioning familiar imagery by withholding or emphasizing details in combinations that require deep contemplation.
Her jeweled palette and tightly framed scenes compel us to linger on the image, slowing down the act of looking at something close to a meditative encounter, thus focusing on the detail, texture, and painterly quality of the work.