Lou Baker
Lou Baker makes public things that are normally private. She is both a maker and a facilitator. Her work provokes a range of conflicting responses; attraction, repulsion, horror and hilarity. Some aspects of her practice investigate the transformation of materials and, increasingly, some focus on social engagement. Making intellectual connections between material, process and concept, her work has a confessional element, as personal memories resonate with universal themes. Stimulating conversations with her audience through performative actions, she facilitates opportunities for the viewer to become an active participant, to find a voice. Her works are provocations – often interactive, collaborative and participatory.
She graduated with First Class Honours in Drawing and Applied Arts at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol in 2015. She was awarded The Embroiderers’ Guild Scholarship for 2015-16. She’s currently studying an MA in Fine Art at Bath Spa University.
Works
Body cocoons, 2020
Developed in response to the Covid 19 lockdown in the UK, Body cocoons is a series of hand knitted, wearable soft sculptures. Worn by the artist, they take on her form and explore the flexible boundaries between Self and Other, form and formlessness, inside and outside; unworn, empty, they investigate private and public spheres, and suggest absence and the abject.
Wishing trees, 2020
Wishing trees is a series of 4 participatory art installations ‘planted’ outside in public spaces in Bristol, UK. On account of the ubiquitous contamination anxiety due to Covid-19, Baker couldn’t leave materials for participants to add so instead passers-by were invited to bring something to tie to the trees next time they walked that way. There has been a wonderful range of responses both physically and virtually, as many people have sent messages via social media for me to add to the installations. It’s almost as if there’s a fifth, virtual Wishing tree. It seems that it is still possible to facilitate participatory art, even during the Covid-19 lock down.
As of August 2020, the Wishing trees are still in situ. For full documentation of the first two months of the project click here.
Red is the colour of...., 2019-2020 and ongoing
Red is the colour of…. is a series of red hand knitted soft sculptures which Baker initially cdeveloped for the B-Wing exhibition in September 2019, as a response to what she perceived as the traces of emotion left behind in those spaces by the former inhabitants of Shepton Mallet Prison. The knitted pieces were installed there around the first floor of the prison wing, connected by a red thread, like Theseus’ labyrinth. The series is a work in progress and Baker has subsequently installed them at the inaugural exhibition at Bath Spa University in February 2020 as part of her MA in Fine Art.
IN.BRS.2019.39 Shadow sacks over dark pool, a collaboration with Scott Sandford, 2019
IN.BRS.2019.39 is a site responsive collaboration with Scott Sandford, installed as part of B-Wing, at Shepton Mallet Prison for two weeks in September 2019. Set in one of the semi derelict wings of a decommissioned prison, Lou Baker’s hand knitted and felted Shadow sacks are suspended with meat hooks and chains over Sandford’s dark pool, reflecting not only the soft sculptures, but also the brutalist architecture.