Louise Bonnet: Reversal of Fortune

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