Paula Louw's Page

Relationship status

married

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Conceptual, Digital, Drawing, Installation, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture

I am...

tall, love art, movies, animals and children

About my artwork

In my artworks I use words and images from cell phones and mechanical parts derived from old typewriters. I am interested in inter-personal communication processes, particularly how contemporary technology has affected these by way of sms and emails which often bear only the most basic letters and words. With this new technology, where speed is the key strategy for saving time, language often paradoxically presents as much a hindrance to communication as a pathway for it.
In the days when manual typewriters were used, a slower form of communication demanded greater reverence and respect in our manner of addressing people. My connection with typewriters has a very personal link. For many years my late father was General Manager of Olivetti in South Africa. He had an analytical mind and a great love for words and language and read the Shorter Oxford Dictionary for pleasure. Communication with him was difficult for me and our relationship was a stormy one. In an odd way this has informed my art which deals with communication and the barriers to it in contemporary communication media.
Dysfunctional, contradictory aspects within communication intrigue me and inform my artwork. I move between old and new modes of making where some works are hand-crafted and labour intensive and thus very tactile, while others are digitally created and thus far less tangible. I try to engage with these two extremes.

Artists I like

William Kentridge, Walter Oltmann, Damian Hirst, Louise Bourgeois and loads of others

The centre of the artworld is

London, nowhere and everywhere

My artreview.com URL:
http://www.artreview.com/profile/PaulaLouw
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