LOUISE HASELTON
b. 1960
Lives and works in Adelaide, Australia
"Louise Haselton produces sculptures and installations in which the formal placement of objects are contrasted with an element of randomness. Traditional precision craft techniques such as casting might be positioned within an assemblage of found objects. Following a Helpmann Academy residency at Sanskriti Kendra, Delhi, India, 2005, Louise has been making sculptural works using materials gleaned from the world around her."
(Dr Mary Knights, 2012)
Louise Haselton makes sculptural works using materials gleaned from the world around her. In 2002 Haselton completed a Masters of Visual Arts (Sculpture) by research at RMIT University, Melbourne and in 2005 undertook a residency at Sanskriti Kendra, Delhi, India. Haselton held solo exhibitions, in 2011 at The Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, in 2013 at Greenaway Art Gallery and in 2014 at The Australian Experimental Art Foundation. In 2015 Haselton participated in do it adelaide, at The Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, when she enacted instructions by Alison Knowles and was included in the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Magic Object at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Since 2003 she has been a lecturer in The School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia.
LIKE CURES LIKE
SAMSTAG MUSEUM / 2019
IN CAHOOTS
FREMANTLE ART CENTRE / 2017
IN CAHOOTS -
In Cahoots: artists collaborate across Country is an expansive exhibition of new work taking over Fremantle Art Centre's galleries. The works are the result of 18 months of artists’ residencies in remote and regional Aboriginal art centres across Australia.
Artists from six key Aboriginal art centres have invited leading independent artists – both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal – from around the country to work with them. The resulting collaborative artworks are significant, striking and bold in their inventive use of materials.
Featuring sculptural works, installations and films drawing together the ideas of artists from diverse backgrounds, In Cahoots presents these fascinating, potent collaborations happening across Country today.
Louise Haselton collaborated with Papulankutja Artists (WA): Lynette Brown, Nora Davidson, Pamela Hogan, Freda Lane, Angilyiya Mitchell, Anawari Mitchell and Jennifer Mitchell
MAGIC OBJECT / 2016
LOUISE HASELTON
MAGIC OBJECT -
Materials possess an intrinsic spirit or energy for Adelaide artist Louise Haselton. This idea of animism, or the belief that inanimate objects are indeed conscious, allows for Haselton’s works of art to direct their own evolution. The artist confirms that she will sit ‘in the studio with them as they move around, group themselves, rearrange and settle into comfortable situations’. Acknowledging this extraordinary power, Haselton’s contributions to Magic Object, of perspex and concrete vitrine-like sculptures, have been carefully selected and unified as if they have naturally incarnated themselves.
Gemma Weston writes in her catalogue essay that Haselton’s ‘process of sculpting favours activation over creation; she is not a source of ‘animation’ but instead heightens the innate communicative powers of materials by alteration or by introducing one material to another.’ By witnessing and connecting the divine essence and materiality of each object, Haselton’s works are endowed with a physical presence otherwise unseen.
Louise Haselton’s sculptures feature in Gallery 22 at the Art Gallery of South Australia during Magic Object.