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
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- 11.11.22Red 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 LawContamination 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 videoBody 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), JuneThe 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
All the babies
I might have had 1, 2011, hand-knitted, felted wool
My imaginary friend, 2012, used clothing, zips, stitch