MIER GALLERY is pleased to present a solo booth featuring the paintings and works on paper of Swiss-born artist Louise Bonnet for Art Los Angeles Contemporary 2016. She explores fleeting feelings of melancholy, nostalgia, and displacement in her portraits of cartoon-like, yet meticulously-rendered, characters. Bonnet draws inspiration from her roots in illustration and the influential comic books of her youth. She continually explores her interest in the way comics exaggerate life and are at the service of a narrative by similarly telling isolated stories. The characters portraying these brief, almost forgotten moments, are ultimately autobiographical. The exaggerated proportions of body parts and incongruous scale amplifies her depiction of emotions, making them more intense and complex in their absurdity. She creates a surrealistic atmosphere and palpable tension in her paintings that transforms what may seem mundane and everyday, thus changing or amplifying its meaning or the viewer’s feelings about it. The flipping of a light switch or the physicality of an intimate
The exaggerated proportions of body parts and incongruous scale amplifies her depiction of emotions, making them more intense and complex in their absurdity. She creates a surrealistic atmosphere and palpable tension in her paintings that transforms what may seem mundane and everyday, thus changing or amplifying its meaning or the viewer’s feelings about it. The flipping of a light switch or the physicality of an intimate poke, become something bigger than it may deserve. Her technique aims to disappear the artist’s hand in favor of the character, emphasizing a duality that emerges out of what the painting depicts versus how it was created.
The body of work provides an exploration of the every-day lingering sensation of fleeting emotions that are so easily forgotten or repressed. Bonnet’s unique voice and style will provide a strand of quixotic humor and psychological depth.