Deconstruction 2014
In June of 2014 Louis embarked on a project of "Deconstruction" whereby he sought to strip back the essentials of the still life format and create a series of paintings where tone and texture supplanted representation.
In the Artists own words:
"The idea for this exhibition came about as a result of a swap I instigated with a potter friend of mine. I was looking at the work of Nikki Tugwell and suggested to her that I could paint pictures of her pots and swap said pictures for the pots themselves. It was around this time I was giving classes in The Moth in Cavan and came up with the idea that we (the class and I) could do a collaboration of our work of these same pots. This was to prove a tad more difficult than I had envisioned; the class were none too enamoured about painting such simplistic objects, never mind about exhibiting them! I had the belief that the painting in itself was more important than the subject matter and that even disliking the object was a way of channelling creative energy. It is remarkable how much of a relationship we can have with an inanimate object when sat in front of it for days and even months.
When faced with a repetitive task we tend to allow our mind to wander and so it was that inevitably the work veered towards abstraction; here was the crossover point that art tends to tread. I took the object and worked in multiple layers of paint, each one its own little discovery as the medium revealed its own qualities. The project went in a full circle and eventually as I ended up with a fully abstract work I found myself wanting to do some “regular” still life. It was then that I set up a composition in the studio with which I have attempted to demonstrate the development of style across a series of paintings. I find there is something special within the sub-structures that have a quality of their own and as such are worthy of display. As such we can never say a painting is finished; merely that it has reached its destination (and quite often start off again on a new journey).
With “Deconstruction” I hope to have demonstrated the quest to both represent and investigate the creative crossover between object and imagination."
Louis Mc Loughlin 6th June 2014.
In addition to his paintings Louis created an installation whereby the objects of the still-lifes were displayed with a central construction, in essence a three-dimensional version of "Deconstruction" together acting as a visual projection that projected a combined image onto the ceiling of the space.
This image of the projected light from "Deconstruction 3d" was to be informative in the artist's development of his next show "Refraction 2016".
