"Louise Saxton Assemblage" video
Louise Saxton is an Australian artist living and working in Melbourne, Victoria. For the past twenty years her practice has centred on reconstructing detritus from the home, including; the re-use of her own paintings; collections of everyday business envelopes and vintage wallpapers; book illustrations; domestic porcelain and discarded needlework. In 2006 Louise was awarded a Sir Ian Potter Cultural Trust travel grant to undertake an artist residency at Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia. Since that time her practice has engaged primarily with the reconstruction of domestic needlework, which she regards as a "silent collaboration with the anonymous original makers."
Louise Saxton's work has been included in the 18th Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial 2008 which toured Australia until 2010 and in the same year, the joint exhibition dot-net-dot-au (with Tim Craker) toured to Malaysia and Singapore. In 2009 she was represented in Paysage/Voyage, which toured in Europe, to England, France and Holland. In 2012 the artist was awarded a grant from the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, for the development of her solo exhibition Sanctuary at Heide Museum of Modern Art. In 2013 she held her first commercial solo exhibition, Sanctuary Too at Gould Galleries (now Gould Creative) and was also awarded the 2013 Yering Sculpture Award for her first major sculptural work Let the Jungle In. In 2014 she was the inaugural Australian artist at 360 Xochi Quetzal Artist Residency, on Lake Chapala in Mexico. She was included in The New Textiles in 2014 and Intoxicating Textiles in 2016, at Mobilia Gallery in Boston, USA. The artist held her second solo exhibition titled WILD, at Gould Galleries in November 2015 and her third solo with the gallery, RECLAIMED Fabric Works 2017-2021, was held at in February 2022. A major installation titled "The Linen Project" was presented at the renowned regional galleries, The Town Hall Gallery in Hawthorn, from October-December 2018 and The Wangaratta Art Gallery in Feb-Mar 2019. This installation celebrates the materiality of linen and investigates its role in caring for home and community. The project was developed through an artist residency at Caritas Christi - St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne.
Louise Saxton's work is held in public collections in Australia and private collections in Australia, Malaysia, India and the USA. She has held artist residencies in Malaysia, France, Mexico, Spain and Australia. The artist is represented in Australia by Gould Creative.