Swiss artist LOUISA GAGLIARDI didn’t always have art on her mind. She started off as graphic designer, doing commercial work for fashion house Kenzo, and watch company Hublot. From exhibiting paintings which transferred her image-making skills from one discipline to the other, to pursuing painting in 2015, Gagliardi is now one of the most intriguing young painters in the art world. Her artistic process begins with pencil sketches, which she later retraces digitally through Photoshop, prints them on a vinyl, and finally decorates it with varnish, clear gel medium and nail polish. DSCENE Editors Katarina Doric and Vuk ?uk sat down with Louisa to talk about her exploration of method of loci, the border between the artificial and phyiscal and her recent works presented at Art Basel.
Do you dream about your art?
I don’t dream about it per se, but a lot of ideas come to me in the in-between states of consciousness, either when I fall asleep or wake up in the morning.
Your artwork can easily remind one of a scene from a dream. Are they nightmares, pleasant dreams, or something in between?
The figures and places in my works can be anyone and no one, everywhere and nowhere. A puzzle reminiscent of dreams, where places and people seem familiar, but rarely can we pinpoint exactly who or where. I want the viewer to be able to project their own narrative onto the work; that’s why I try to keep it somewhat vague.
Do you consider your art as a form of a visual diary?
Unconsciously yes. When I start a new series of work, I let the ideas flow and paint whatever comes to mind. Once I have enough material, I begin to solve the puzzle, as they sort of dictate where the work is going to go.
“The figures and places in my works can be anyone and no one, everywhere and nowhere. A puzzle reminiscent of dreams, where places and people seem familiar, but rarely can we pinpoint exactly who or where. I want the viewer to be able to project their own narrative onto the work; that’s why I try to keep it somewhat vague.”
Your recent work explores the method of loci, created to enhance memory’s function. Do the scenes from your work come from your memory or help you memorize something?
Alex Turgeon, who wrote the beautiful text for my show at Rodolphe Janssen, Around the Clock, was the one who introduced me to the method of loci and associated it with the works. I think it’s so fitting, and again, unconsciously, as the paintings are such puzzles of ideas, moments, and images of my daily life; they are a way to memorize a period of time. When I look back at works, they bring me back to the state of mind I was in when I created them, the places and people.
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What does the interior of your memory palace look like?
I would say that the paintings help me figure that out. They let me organize the cacophony that is in my mind. Rearrange and formulate the information, to turn fragments of information into a coherent whole.
Through his exploration of the collective unconscious, Jung concludes that the real creator is not the artist but the unconscious. He sees art as a natural, instinctual process. Does your work come to you naturally?
Yes, as I mentioned earlier, I first let my mind run free. Instead of overplanning the work, I let them take me where I need to go.
Finding myself in front of your work and looking at it, I had a feeling that it looked back. It somehow forms a mutual environment surpassing the border between the artificial and physical space. Are we, as observers, also the protagonists of your work?
I’m glad you felt it, as I want to involve the viewer in the work. First, by keeping the scene open and letting you project your own narrative onto the scene. Second, there is very often this play between the figures and those looking at them—in this case, the visitor. There is a connection and a disconnection. Are you the voyeur? Are you a welcome or an uninvited guest?
Your work Tête-à-tête presented at this year’s Art Basel (measuring over ten meters wide and three meters seventy in height) was one of the most striking ones at the fair. The scene of the finished dinner made me feel like I had stepped into the room and interrupted something. Did I?
Thank you. Yes, I want my paintings to feel as if you opened the door when people weren’t expecting it, and everyone stopped doing what they were doing. But there is a heaviness in the room. A suspension. Either chaos happened or is about to.
“I want my paintings to feel as if you opened the door when people weren’t expecting it, and everyone stopped doing what they were doing. But there is a heaviness in the room. A suspension. Either chaos happened or is
about to. ”
It also made me think about what happened before the scene you captured. Is your artwork a conclusion to the scene you’ve imagined? Do you always know what happened before and what happens after?
I don’t. I’m as much a guest as anyone else in them.
Who are the small people accompanying the regularly sized people in your artworks?
There is often a strong disconnect between the regularly sized people in my work. These days, we get to be hyper-connected to everyone via technology/social media but feel anxious about connections IRL. We get to curate an image of our ideal self online and filter what we look like and what we say, which we can’t do in person (as much). Often, and it’s quite present in the works in the show, only the small people–who are usually objects taking a life of their own—get to act freely and actually connect to one another. In Boiling Point, for example, the steamy characters have a passionate embrace. In Bon Après-midi, the sculpted bushes are comfortably lounging and walking around.
Did you ever suffer from a recurring nightmare?
My nightmares are usually huge catastrophes, like a flood or a plane crash, where I have to find my loved ones to get them out to safety. But nightmares are rare, maybe because I get to let them out in my paintings.
What are your dreams for the future?
I’m living the dream. I hope it lasts.
All images courtesy of the artist and Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels. Photography by HV photography
Keep up with Louisa on Instagram – @louisagagliardi
Originally published in DSCENE “Fever Dreams” Art Issue
