Louise Giovanelli: A Song of Ascents at The Hepworth Wakefield

Manchester-based artist Louise Giovanelli presents a new body of work at The Hepworth Wakefield this winter. Louise Giovanelli: A Song of Ascents features her signature large-scale sensual paintings alluding to contemporary worship in a multitude of ways. The exhibition is Giovanelli’s largest solo show to date and features a new series of specially commissioned, never before seen paintings.

While it may sound strange to say that works are extremely visual, Giovanelli’s paintings really are a sumptuous aesthetic treat – they are born from a long process of looking, choosing, cropping and layering. Here is an artist for whom colour theory is an everyday practice and she uses her knowledge to striking effect. Close-up the paintings’ textures can resemble a collection of random colourful marks which then come together to create clean, luminous compositions.

The brief sensual moments she captures focus on unpredictable subjects: satin shirts cropped to exclude the wearers or the hangers they’re placed on, opulent stage curtains drawn before or after an unknown performance, open mouths or a locks of curled hair. The close cropping adds both mystique and an unsettling quality. The rest of the image is always out of sight and the artist explains her fascination with the mystery: “These curtains, once thrown back offer the promise of entering another realm – and once closed, contain that promise. The painting hangs in a suspended state, leaving us to wonder whether the show is over or just beginning.”

Giovanelli’s paintings aren’t just formal exercises though, as the artist explores the fine line between the sacred and profane. Her paintings interrogate the idea that intense experiences of intoxication, lust or religious devotion are not too dissimilar in how they manifest in our consciousness and bodily responses. The idea of duality is carried through her painting techniques too: spend some time with her seemingly hyper-realistic works and you’ll see that something isn’t quite right and things are not always what they seem, no matter how beautiful at first glance.

For this reason, Louise Giovanelli: A Song of Ascents really must be seen in the flesh. Join the The Festive Market and after hours preview of the show (along with the opening of Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes) on 22 November.