Memory and the Five Senses; Louise Bourgeois

" Identity" 12:22 

 https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s1/louise-bourgeois-in-identity-segment/

"I need to make things. The physical interaction with the medium has a curative effect. I need the physical acting out. I need to have these objects exist in relation to my body."

Louise Bourgeois

    Louise Bourgeois is an artist I admire for her healing and nurturing attention towards her work, which in return I receive her love put into the installations and sculpture she does. Born during World World I, her work started in the 1930s until heart failure in 2010.  The theme of Bourgeois works is through autobiographical lenses; The New York Times said that her work "shared a set of repeated themes, centered on the human body and its need for nurture and protection in a frightening world."  Her art's driving force comes from childhood trauma, a reflection of abandonment from her unfaithful father and her mother's death at 22.   Being a child with an absent father I understand the range of emotions from abandonment, sadness, hope, and love.  Luckily my mother has been the strongest example of a maternal figure, but still, the emotions can be complicated.

Louise Bourgeois, Helping Hands, 1993, Chicago Women's Park and Gardens

    "Identity" is a video recording of Louise Bourgeois and the methodologies within her artistic process for the Chicago Gardens commemorating Jane Addams, an American activist known for social work.  The installation in her studio shows large rectangular stones with an arm alone or one holding another's hand.  These gestures symbolize the reciprocated energy between nurturer and child.  The process consisted of plaster, then placing Bourgeois's arms and her assistant's arms into the cast until it dries, after this shellac is placed on top and finished with more plaster.  The original cast shows the life through documenting the wrinkles, veins; it is really her hand and a physical attachment to her work.  The material has significant meaning by the contrast of density and strength from the stone and the fragility of the black hands.  "Black is Beautiful.", Bourgeois firmly states. 

In these photos you can see when Bourgeois alternates between nuturer and child

    The Tate museum features many of her works; from a bronze hanging sculpture of male genitalia, to larger spiders sculptures that started from ink marks and charcoal on paper, anything she has done the audience cant help but admire this sweet woman's strength within her existence in the world.  Bourgeois is close to my heart for many reasons and I hope viewers can make her art an addition to their narrative by helping and loving through life.  Below is an awesome exercise also found on Tate museum's website to help grow closer to Bourgeois and her reoccurring themes told in the art pieces.

    Have A Go: Opposing Forces

    Louise Bourgeois explored opposing forces or themes in her work.  

• Are there any opposing forces that affect, or have affected you? Or can you think of imaginary narratives that relate to the idea of opposing forces? (These could be people who have played an important part in your life; opposing emotions you have had; or a symbolic idea of opposites – such as weak and strong or good and evil).
• Use these ideas to create your own work that explores opposing forces.
• Experiment with contrasting materials, shapes, forms and colours to suggest the different forces.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351/art-louise-bourgeois