Lou Baker, Portfolio, December 2022

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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.

2022

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

Transitional objects, 2022, used clothing, bedding, towels, zips, hair, nails, leather, imitation leather, fake fur, canvas, knitting, felt installed 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
-
Parts of me, 2021, knitting, steel, concrete, installed at Social Scaffolding, Orchard Shopping Centre, Taunton, 24.9.
9.10.22
Living sculptures at Social Scaffolding, Orchard Shopping Centre, Taunton, 24.9. - 9.10.22
24.9
Red room, a site-responsive installation of knitting at Social scaffolding, Orchard Shopping Centre, Taunton,
- 9.10.22 Walkthrough video
Image: Jon England
Red is the colour of… 2019-2021, hand knitting, installed at New Contemporaries 2022, Humber Street Gallery, Hull 23.9.- 27.11. 22 Installation image, Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2022, Ferens Art Gallery and Humber Street Gallery. Photography Jules Lister. Courtesy New Contemporaries
Click
here for the New Contemporaries Online Platform
Red is the colour of…. 2, August 2022 40 hand-knitted sculptures

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

Detail

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

2021

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

for a walkthrough video
This installation has been selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2022
Red is the colour of…, 2019-2021, hand knitting, installed at Real space residency, Michael Pennie Gallery, Bath Spa University, April/May 2021

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

2020

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

2019

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

Day 1 Day 16 Feedback cell, 2019, garden netting, labels, cloth and thread, participatory installation at ‘B-Wing’, Shepton Mallet Prison, 21.9 - 6.10

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

Tethering our thoughts, 2019, string, fruit nets, labels, a site-responsive, participatory installation at ‘Incendiary’, Stroud Valley Art Space, Stroud
of fire, pillars
rage,
hand
wool, knitting needles
installed at ‘Incendiary 2’, Pound
2020
pillar
rage, installed
2019 4 Pillars of fire, pillars of rage, installed in a tree, Jan 2019. Click here for a video
Pillars
of
2019-20
knitted
A series of 5 sculptures
Arts, Corsham, August
One Pillar of fire,
of
at the Sculpture Open, Royal West of England Academy (RWA), Bristol,
2018

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

Part of me 1, 2017
Comfort/discomfort, Day 27, 2018, elastic, cloth, labels, ceramic labels, a collaboration with Gina Baum, a site-responsive, participatory installation at ‘Subversive surfaces’ exhibition, Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge, June/July
2017
Pharmacopoeia, 2017, pill packets, staples

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

2016
Day 6 Day 4 Day 16 Day 11 Day 16 Day 23 Day 25 Day 9 Don’t wash your dirty laundry in public, 2016, used clothing, washing line, pegs, body bags
2015

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

2014

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

Shroud, 2013, hand knitted wool
Plastic surgery, 2012, plastic bags, stitch, performance still
Image: Jonny Baker

All the babies

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

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

Other 3, wearing the unwearable, 2015, imitation leather, felt, zips, stitch, print www.loubakerartist.co.uk Contact: loubakerartist@gmail.com For regular updates follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @loubakerartist

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