LOUISE BOURGEOIS

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (25 December 1911 – 31 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker.

Bourgeois entered the Sorbonne to study mathematics and geometry, subjects that she valued for their stability, saying "I got peace of mind, only through the study of rules nobody could change."

She moved to the States with her husband and struggled to make exhibitions in New York. She developed her own language, and became famous as an sculptor.

THEMES

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA. The main force behind her art was to work through her troubled childhood memories. These memories were not specific, but a layering of emotional responses to the complicated relationship she had with her parents and their relationship with each other.
ABANDONMENT. Bourgeois’s mother, Joséphine, suffered from ill health and Louise cared for her for long periods of time. Josephine died when Louise was just 22. This, and her father’s unfaithfulness (he had a series of mistresses), led to a fear of abandonment, a key theme in Bourgeois’s work.
THE SPIDER. Bourgeois uses the spider, both predator (a sinister threat) and protector (an industrious repairer), to symbolise the mother figure.

THE SPIDER

This huge spider was the perfect representation of the mother. Despite its frightening look, a spider is thoughtful, intelligent, patient, delicate, subtle and useful.

There's no better mum than a spider. She takes care and protects her brood, (we see the eggs) and nurtures them. A spider is strong and fragile at the same time, also a tender and scary predator.

A spider is also an artist: she weavers. Bourgeois' mother was a weaver too. Her family had a weaver's restoration business and once again, the sculptor inspired herself in her family memories, her childhood, her life to create her extraordinary work, full of honesty and poetry.

ACTIVITY: PAINT YOUR OWN SPIDER WOMAN

Think about an important woman in your life (it doesn't have to be your mum). Why is she important to you? Does she take care of you? Does she suffocate you?

Try to draw a paint an spider. Transform this spider into your own spider woman.