Louise Bourgeouis

"Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it and then if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor."  (Bourgeois, 1998, p. back cover page)

Bourgeois was born in Paris, 1911. Her family was restoring and selling tapestries.  When she got married she moved to New York.  She worked primarily in painting, drawing and printmaking.  Later she did sculpture as well. (Wye, Smith 1994 p 11)
 Her method of working recalls the free-associative "acting-out" merges with that of analyzing. Her aim is to attain both emotional release and self-awareness." (Wye, Smith 1994 p 13)

She started to write from the age of 12. She wrote diaries and notes. Her drawing went paralel with her writing.  (Bourgeois, 1998, p. 18)
She had no an easy life. Her mother died when she was 20 and her father didn`t understand her grief, she threw herself in the river. Her picture by name "La Maison d`Arcueil" represents her fear of danger but on the same time she experiments a magnetic appeal. (Wye, Smith 1994 p 65)

 picture available at: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A710&page_number=108&template_id=1&sort_order=1

accessed: 24 April 2012

I found Bourgeois` method of creating art very authentic, she has the ability to became herself the  live process of creation excluding her analytical thinking on those very moments as she says:
"I want to explain why I did the piece. I don`t really see why the artist should say anything, because the work is supposed to speak for itself. So whatever the artist says about it is like an apology, it is not necessary." (Bourgeois, 1998, p. 168)
"A work of art has nothing to do with the artist, a work of art has to stand by itself, so I repeat that it is totally unnecessary to ask me what I want you to see in a piece, because you are supposed to see it by yourself."
 (Bourgeois, 1998, p. 168)

                 Available at: http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/prints-Louise-Bourgeois-114.html
                                                                 accessed 25 April 2012

                                picture available at: http://blog.frieze.com/louise_bourgeois_1911_2010/
                                                                          accessed 25 April 2012


She did self-portraits, some of them done using just pencil on paper. She says about her self-portraits "a youthful aberration...the self-portraits are not beautified: they are fairly critical." (Bourgeois, 1998, p. 294)

                                                        picture available in the book Wye, D. Smith, C. 1994

Bourgeois, L. 1998, Louise Bourgeois Deconstruction of the father Reconstruction of the father Violette Editions, London.


Wye, D., Smith, C. 1994 The Prints of Louise Bourgeois, The Museum of Modern Art, New York