Louise Hearman

In Louise Hearman’s paintings and drawings things are not always as they seem. It is up to us to imagine what is glimmering in the half-light or lurking deep in the shadows, as the artist offers no written clues to her usually untitled works. An underlying sense of disquiet permeates many of Hearman’s images. Like the fragmented memories of dreams or nightmares, they carry the emotional traces of everyday events, but their surreal logic does not seem to belong to the daylight hours.

Hearman’s single-minded attentiveness to the qualities of light and her technical ability to capture its effects in oil paint are central to the mysterious pictures she creates. Collecting imagery for her work by closely observing and photographing her experiences, she merges these photographs with other recalled and imagined images, working in her Melbourne studio to create unsettling compositions that transform the everyday into something extraordinary. By combining familiar imagery with personal visions of the unknown and the unknowable, her art hints at the compelling nonverbal nature of our private thoughts and imaginings.In Louise Hearman’s paintings and drawings things are not always as they seem. It is up to us to imagine what is glimmering in the half-light or lurking deep in the shadows, as the artist offers no written clues to her usually untitled works. An underlying sense of disquiet permeates many of Hearman’s images. Like the fragmented memories of dreams or nightmares, they carry the emotional traces of everyday events, but their surreal logic does not seem to belong to the daylight hours.

Hearman’s single-minded attentiveness to the qualities of light and her technical ability to capture its effects in oil paint are central to the mysterious pictures she creates. Collecting imagery for her work by closely observing and photographing her experiences, she merges these photographs with other recalled and imagined images, working in her Melbourne studio to create unsettling compositions that transform the everyday into something extraordinary. By combining familiar imagery with personal visions of the unknown and the unknowable, her art hints at the compelling nonverbal nature of our private thoughts and imaginings.

ArtworksExhibitions