Lou Baker, Portfolio, December 2022

Lou Baker Portfolio December 2022

Artist statement

It’s a question of balance. The darker side of Lou Baker’s sculptural practice is balanced by a brighter side of social engagement, as she makes public things that are normally private. Her works are provocations - to thought, conversation and action.

Stereotypically, hand-knitting is functional, perfect and finished, associated with garments, domesticity, comfort and the body. Baker subverts these expectations by ‘knitting together’ her ideas with her explorations of material, process, form, colour, surface and installation. It’s sculptural, sloppy craft; unfinished, unravelling. Site-responsive, it’s shapeshifting, formlessness and flexible. Alluring, yet somehow, uncanny, its soft impermanence reminds us of our mortality.

Transitional objects, 2022, used clothing, bedding, towels, zips, hair, nails, leather, imitation leather, fake fur, canvas, knitting, felt

Visitors interacting with Transitional objects, 2022, at seam collective’s A Visible THREAD exhibition at ACEarts, Somerton, 26.11-24.12.22

Baker and Bliss, permission to play, a collaboration with Oliver Bliss at Strode College, 14,11,22

Red room, a site-responsive installation of hand-knitting for Social scaffolding, at EMERGE, Bath Spa University, Sion Hill campus, Bath 13.10- 11.11.22

Parts of me, 2021, knitting, steel, concrete, installed at Social Scaffolding, EMERGE, Bath Spa University, Sion Hill, Bath 13.10- 11.11.22

Living sculptures at Social Scaffolding, EMERGE, Bath Spa University, Sion Hill campus , Bath 13.10- 11.11.22

Living sculptures at Social Scaffolding, Orchard Shopping Centre, Taunton, 24.9. - 9.10.22

Red room, a site-responsive installation of knitting at Social scaffolding, Orchard Shopping Centre, Taunton,

Image: Jon England

Red is the colour of…. 2, current work in progress, March 2022 - present

Please click here for a video of the work in progress

Lou knitting

Social knitwork, 2022

Worldwide Knit in Public Day (WWKIP), community knitting, Bath, June 2022

Baker and Bliss, permission to play, a collaboration with Oliver Bliss at Grayson’s Art Club: Museum at Night event, Bristol Museum, 26.5.22

Video of highlights

(m)other, 2022, used bedding and towels, meat hooks, installed at The Holburne Open as part of seam collective’s A VISIBLE Thread residency, March/April

Made flesh, 2021-22, hand knitting, knitting needles, series of 6, installed at The Holburne Open as part of seam collective’s A VISIBLE Thread residency, March/April

(m)other 2, 2022, used bedding, towels and underwear, zip, stitch, used mattress

permission to play, 2022, a month-long participatory project, a collaboration with Oliver Bliss installed at The Holburne Open as part of seam collective’s

A VISIBLE Thread residency, March/April

Click here for video documentation

A visitor responding to the installation

Entrails, 2022, hand knitting, installed at the Holburne Open as part of seam collective’s

A VISIBLE Thread residency, March/April

Parts of me, 2021, hand knitting, PVC, zips, stitch, steel, concrete, lead, the artist’s sandals, installed at The MA Degree Show, Bath Spa University, September Please click here

Cocoons, 2021, hand-knitted monofilament, installed at ‘Regeneration’, Stone Lane Gardens, Devon, June-Oct.

Video

talking

of Lou

about Cocoons, by Tom Law

Contamination anxiety, 2021, the artist’s hands cast in lead, steel, nuts and bolts 1 of a series of 4 pairs

Social knitwork, 2021, a month-long participatory project at The Art Cohort and around 4 trees on a walking trail in Bath, May/June

Watch a video about Social knitwork here and an Artist talk here

Impossible shoes 2, 2021, concrete, lost wax cast of the artist’s feet

Parts of me, 2020, hand-knitting, steel, Jesmonite, plaster, the artist’s shoes, a series of 4 assemblages, installed at the Interim MA Degree Show at Bath Spa University, September

Walkthrough video

Body cocoons, 2020- 2021, (wearing the unwearable), performance stills

Click on each image for a short video

Self portrait, 2020, canvas, tights, steel, concrete, stitch

Wishing trees, 2020-2021, a series of 4 participatory installations set up in public spaces in Bristol during the first Covid-19 UK lockdown

To see 2 videos of Lou talking about the Wishing trees, please click here and here.

For more information click here and here.

Impossible shoes 1, concrete casts of the artist’s shoes

IN.BRS.2019.

39 (Shadow sacks over dark pool), 2019, a collaboration with Scott Sandford, felted handknitting, dark pool, dripping mechanism, installed at ‘B-Wing’, Shepton Mallet Prison, 21.9- 6.10 Click here for a video

Red is the colour of…, 2019, site responsive installation at ‘B-Wing’, Shepton Mallet Prison, Sept 21-Oct 6 Walkthrough video

Shadow sacks in the slopping out room, 2019, felted hand knitting, series of 5, installed at ‘BWing’, Shepton Mallet Prison, 21.9 - 6.10

Living sculptures, prison series, 2019, made for ‘B-Wing’ in response to Shepton Mallet Prison, 21.9 – 6.10

The presence of absence, 2019, used clothing, used shoes, washing lines, pegs, installed at ‘B-Wing’, Shepton Mallet Prison, 21.9 - 6.10

Click here for a short video

Living sculptures, 2018, with a participant, installed at ‘disquiet’, Walcot Chapel, Bath, Sept.

Click here for a video

Unseen, 2018, red monofilament, knitted monofilament, knitting needles, site responsive installation at Walcot Chapel, Bath, September

Internal monologue, 2018, hand knitting, knitting needles, installed at ‘disquiet’, Walcot Chapel, Bath, Sept.

Click here and here for videos of visitors interacting with the sculpture

Internal monologue installed at an allotment

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, 2018, canvas, stitch

Parts of me, 2017-2018, felted hand knitting, a series of 6 sculptures, installed at The Cells at Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge, for ‘Subversive surfaces’, June - July

Safety net, Day 12, 2017, detail, garden netting, labels, cloth, a site responsive, participatory installation at ‘Refuge: in search of safety’, Fringe Arts Bath, May/June

All the babies I might have had 2, 2015, detail, leather, imitation leather, felted knitting, used clothing, zips

The others; a self portrait, 2015, leather, imitation leather, knitting, knitted felt, felt, velvet, concrete; stitch, print installed at The Degree Show, University of the West of England (UWE), June

The Others; a self portrait, 2015 leather, imitation leather, velvet, felt, knitting, felted knitting, fake fur, zips

The others; a self portrait (wearing the unwearable), 2015, leather, imitation leather, velvet, felt, knitting, felted knitting, fake fur, zips

Nobodies, 2014, knitting, felted knitting, leather, imitation leather, used clothing, velvet, zips, knitting needles, meat hooks, chains, installed at ‘Synecdoche’, Embassy Tea Gallery, London, June

Nobody 1, 2014, leather, imitation leather, used clothing, velvet, zips, meat hook, chain; stitch, print

Pre-2014

Image: Jonny Baker

All the babies

I might have had 1, 2011, hand-knitted, felted wool

My imaginary friend, 2012, used clothing, zips, stitch