Louise Giovanelli
THIS WEEK on the GWA Podcast, we interview one of the most esteemed young painters working in the world right now, LOUISE GIOVANELLI!\n\nGiovanelli\u2019s paintings bridge art history and modern pop-cultural narratives and explore the tensions between representation/ abstraction, fiction/ reality, historic/ contemporary, painting/ digital sphere.\n\nRetaining the meticulousness of renaissance paintings and coalescing it with 80s and 90s music videos, Giovanellis\u2019s delicate and electrically luminous scapes offer a language rooted in history yet feel completely otherworldly. On a screen they feel like one thing, but meet them in the flesh, and they become real, with dabs of white oil paint SPARKLING off the canvas. For me, they are time-based. Sit with these paintings and it\u2019s like their surfaces are constantly moving. \n\nBorn in the 90s and now based in Manchester, Giovanelli has quickly risen up the ranks as one of Britain\u2019s leading young painters. Having completed her BA at Manchester School of Art, and her MA at the Stadeschule in Frankfurt with professor Amy Silman in 2020, Louise Giovanelli has since exhibited all over the world, including at Grimm Gallery, the Hayward Gallery\u2019s Mixing it Up, Manchester Art Gallery, and more recently, at White Cube in London. \n\nGiovanelli\u2019s paintings are theatrical and stage-like. She creates a language that feels like a heightened version of reality that looks to renaissance painting and film stills and encompasses photography, classical sculpture, architecture and painting. They feel almost too good to be true, full of mystery and enigma. As the artist has said herself \u2013 \n\n\u2018These curtains, once thrown back, offer this promise to enter another realm \u2013 and once closed, contain that promise. The painting hangs in a suspended state, leaving us wondering whether the show is over, or in fact just beginning.\u2019 \n\n--\n\nFrieze review of White Cube: https://www.frieze.com/article/louise-giovanelli-as-if-almost-2022-review \nAnOther interview: https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/14447/daniel-arsham-on-bringing-his-first-exclusively-outdoor-exhibit-to-the-uk \nFT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a0bfd459-e1f3-4940-8ec6-93546ccb7047 \nOcula interview: https://ocula.com/advisory/perspectives/louise-giovanelli-white-cube/ \nArtsy: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-figurative-works-black-artists-self-expression-redress-british-colonialism \n\nWhite Cube show: https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/Louise_Giovanelli_White_Cube_Bermondsey\nDissolving Realms show: https://www.kasmingallery.com/exhibition/dissolving-realms-2022 \n\nENJOY!!!\n\nFollow us:\nKaty Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel\nResearch assistant: Viva Ruggi\nSound editing by Nada Smiljanic\nArtwork by @thisisaliceskinner\nMusic by Ben Wetherfield\n\nhttps://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/\n\n--\n\nTHIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY CHRISTIES: www.christies.com