Luisa Caldwell
Email: luisacaldwell@gmail.com
Website: www.luisacaldwell.com
Medium: sculpture, installation, mixed-media, public art, collage, drawing
Artist Statement
I make sculptures, installations and collage based paintings and works on paper using materials such as fruit stickers, candy wrappers, or boxes. Along with repurposing material I collect with the intensity of a hoarder, I am also inadvertently archiving our societies ever changing consumer habits and design conventions without the work being primarily about that.
By using ephemera, I relate an aspect of the physical world we live in to that of personal imagery and form making. I like taking seeingly insignificant detritus and making something meaningful. The two dimensional work reflects my interest in flora and the botanical world, as well as pattern and decoration and even folk-art and a nod to the Rococo.
With sculpture I tend towards a simplified geometrical or architectural form and aspire to architectural scale. The candy wrapper and thread hanging sculptures are more process, or even craft oriented, with the repeated motion it takes to tie each wrapper into a bow shape. I use multiple strands to make structures mimicking walls or columns, which shimmer and dazzle.
More recently I am gluing the wrappers into large wall like panels that are inspired by the dramatic colors of stunning sunsets and skyscapes.
I work towards a balanced composition that stems from an innate rhythmic sense, whether it veers to the a natural or hand-made world. Combined with the way I transform collected materials this makes for a very distinct personal aesthetic.
My work is emotional, humorous and joyful. Like Matisse “… I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter-a soothing, calming influence on the mind…” And while my works aesthetic impact is intense, the social and cultural implications are also at work. Consumption, abundance, and wastefulness are implied. The materials add layers of interpretation to what may appear visually formal – on the surface it is all about color and rhythm