Louise Younger

Artist Statement

I am a magpie I collect, collate I salvage, save I appropriate, arrange I hoard, in my own order It's a question of sculpture, skill and sarcasm Of labour, laziness and love 3-dimensional drawing, painting, collage. My work is about the questioning and balance of materials, actions and thoughts in order to ascertain the potential contemporary identities of myself as an artist and thereby art, or more specifically, sculpture. I began this body of work as an experiment into questioning the value of Art, through the marriage of objects, gestures, and formal interventions. As an artist I see myself as a curator of 'things'. If my work was in the theatre, the objects would be the cast. I would not be the writer, I am the director. I explore the ideas of ownership and authorship, through the appropriation of found odd objects and curious commodities. My things are my orchestra, my cast, my assembly, my anthology. My work evokes a sense of a time, a moment, a memory of something that was precious, or something that went too soon. The work can manifest itself in a variety of forms, drawings, photography, assemblage/ installation: from small scale 'Jewels' to large scale 'Figures', to text-based testimonies. It is a personal exploration into what makes artists, Artists and therefore art, Art. It plays with roles, with the identities of 'things'. I play with notions of scale, assortment, composition, the ego, time, balance, presence, absence, touch, simplicity, voice. The works initially express one thing but mean another and this meaning is not conjured up or compulsory through myself - the artist... It comes through a consistent collaboration between the curiosity of the audience, the connections between materials, my careful touch, and consequentially the composed coincidences collectively caused through this cooperation.