Criss-Cross

Criss-Cross presents a series of paintings that Louisa Chambers has been developing over a six-year period (2015-2021)

Initially she begins with a simple folded form, that can be manipulated into a temporary structure (three dimensional) and translated back into a flat two-dimensional space – a painting. Through close observation, she has become intrigued by the patterned surfaces and the juxtaposition of colour and geometry on the form. The colours divert from the original paper models and instead are intuitively selected during the painting process. These forms are recorded from set ups becoming an abstracted still life, often from a frontal view perspective inviting the viewer to imagine the objects from behind.

The criss-cross pattern situated on the gallery wall acts as a backdrop, but equally reuniting the appropriated motifs that originate from architectural sources such as walls, fences, floors or rooftops that reoccur in the paintings on paper and panelled surfaces. These found motifs are memorised from daily encounters such as from walks made locally or further afield.

Pattern and decoration have been key areas of interest in her recent enquiries, particularly modernist Latin American and European abstraction and 20th Century art and design movements such as Pattern and Decoration from North America.