Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London / Holzwarth Publications, Berlin 2020 With an essay by Flavia Frigeri
‘In its convergence of exuberance and melancholia, of gravitas and manic excess, Bonnet’s oeuvre simultaneously solicits varied readings and concocts a general uncertainty as to how we might go about deciphering its mixed messages. The artist paints a landscape of vexed feelings and faiing mythologies that, even if obliquely, invoke aspects of our relationship with contemporary madia culture. Fusing clownish natures, desires and frustrations, Bonnet gives formal expression to social allegories by exposing individual internal turmoil.’ Flavia Frigeri, ‘The twilight of beauty. Louise Bonnet's Interrogation of Bodily Forms’, in: Louise Bonnet, exh. cat., Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London / Holzwarth Publications, Berlin 2020, p. 49
Publisher: Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London / Holzwarth Publications Publication date: 2020 Binding: Hardcover Dimensions: 30.5 x 24.5 x 1.5 cm Pages: 80 ISBN: 978-3-947127-23-8
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Known for her portraits of exaggerated proportions and grotesque features, Louise Bonnet (b. 1970) continually explores emotions of melancholy, loneliness, nostalgia and grief in her works on canvas or paper. Her strong sense of corporeality and precise observation of the tension and movements of body parts result in bending extremities, bloated noses, swollen hands and feet. Bonnet’s protagonists, often situated in everyday environments and domestic interiors, appear involuntarily stretched. Their bodies seem to reflect a disturbing discomfort, an uneasy state of mind that makes their limbs writhe. ‘Bonnet’s is a world of pulsing, sometimes even grotesque exaggerations, where beings inhabit traits that fluctuate in a kind of gender-blended state. Often alone, sometimes with a counterpoint, usually occupying the lion’s share of the composition, almost jammed within the framework of the canvas, with appendages acting more like geysers of feeling, manifesting from deep within. Think more beings functioning as psycho-emotional allegories wherein the inner agonies of plight emerge, baring themselves shamelessly for all the world to ponder.’ A. Nelson, Exquisite Agonies: The Art of Louise Bonnet in Louise Bonnet, Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles 2018
Artist page on maxhetzler.com
New Works
41 Dover Street, London
2020
Exhibition page on maxhetzler.com
