Louise Holgate

Driven to paint from an early age, Louise has devoted her time to painting for the last 10 years following a successful career in architecture. She holds an MA in Environmental Design & Architecture from the RCA where, in addition to her architectural studies, she enjoyed working on projects and additional courses in the Schools of Painting and Photography. Her architectural training with its attention to the composition of form, space and light plays an important part in her work.
  
Each day begins with her visual ‘press ups’: a drawn diary in which she allows the pen to move almost at will across the page; an abstract acrylic, and then a self-portrait. Only when these are complete does she allow herself to pick up her oils.  The first step is to mix a palette – she is particularly fond of mixing complex greys for the myriad tones they can encompass, and the way in which they enliven other colours. Then, she starts making marks, working intuitively until they coalesce into something that resonates – the distilled essence of a view glimpsed, an experience remembered or a sudden shaft of light, perhaps. ‘I seldom know what’s going to come up,’ she says. Nor does she know, when she sets out, how the painting will develop. Her pieces are semi-abstract and she works instinctively, exploring and experimenting to arrive at a point of completion. ‘When recording memories or objects,’ she says, ‘To lift them from the figurative to capture the feeling of what it was that moved me and to surprise myself’.
  
Current and past influences include The St Ives Group and American abstract expressionists. Michael Andrews, particularly for his portraits of the Thames, and Anton Tapies for his thrilling textures are also important.

EXHIBITIONS
Highgate Contemporary Art 2015 - Joint Exhibition with Ruth Bunewell
Highgate Contemporary Art - Group shows: Summer Exhibition 2015 and 2016 
Bath Society of Artists Annual Open Exhibition 2016, 2018 & 2019
NOA (National Open Art) Room at ARTROOMS 2017
HOPE BALL Bath 2017 & 2019: The Forever Friends Appeal Cancer Care Campaign at the Royal United Hospital. Silent Auction to raise funds for building a pioneering new Cancer Centre at the hospital
SKETCH OPEN 2017:  International competition organised by Rabley Drawing Centre, Marlborough, Wiltshire
RWA Bristol: Annual Open Exhibition 2019
Chelsea Arts Club: Open Exhibitions
Affordable Art Fair Battersea. October 2017, 2018 & 2019
AA Fine Art 2021
JOC Ceramic Gallery 2021
The Gallery Little Bedwyn 2021
Louise’s paintings are also in a number of private collections in the UK and in Europe 

ALL ARTWORK COPYRIGHT THE ARTIST