Louise Knowles

Based on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Lou Knowles is a painter drawn to colour, texture and the possibilities of paint. Since the late 1990s, she has worked predominantly in oils, while a love of pattern and collage has also become an important part of her practice.

Lou is heavily influenced by her surroundings — the spaces, objects and landscapes that make up everyday life. She is particularly fascinated by spatial relationships and, most importantly, by negative space: the quiet areas that give shape and meaning to what surrounds them. It is within these parameters that her work evolves.

Abstraction has become her newest focus and challenge.

Artist Statement

“As I explore abstraction in my art practice, I have become increasingly aware that life itself is a series of abstract experiences. Our minds instinctively try to rationalise what happens around us, even when some experiences are simply irrational or beyond explanation.

Change can turn your world upside down, in both positive and negative ways. In the midst of an already full life, it is easy for everything to become chaotic as we juggle the many things that demand our attention.

For me, painting provides a way to slow that process down. Expressing feelings through colour and texture has become an important tool. Putting paint onto a surface gives me time to think, to reflect and to deconstruct my reactions to particular events and experiences.

Colour has always been central to my process. I build layers of colour, creating texture and depth as the painting develops. Each layer carries traces of what came before it, allowing the viewer to sense the passage of time and witness something of the journey beneath the surface.

Light, colour and shadow are recurring elements in my work, acting as metaphors for life, love and loss. Through abstraction, I am interested in capturing not necessarily what a moment looked like, but how it felt.”