About
Louise Pallister was brought up to take an interest in the lives of other animals, often depicting them in her childhood drawings and stories. Following initial degree studies in sculpture she went on to work in museums, galleries and design studios around the country before returning to her own practice, graduating with Distinction in MA Fine Art from City and Guilds of London Art School in 2014. Since then her practice has expanded to include drawing, printmaking, photography, animation and writing, concerning our relationship with animals.
“I enjoyed drawing from a young age and so I drew more and I drew what I loved and was around me: our animal companions, nature, organic shapes. Studying life drawing and sculpture for my first degree trained me to consider form and to think about drawing in the round. When I returned to my own practice it felt inevitable that I’d focus on our fellow animal travellers on this unique planet and the only subject matter that truly fascinates me. Mark making, for me, is a means of translating an experience or sensation, a form of journaling and a way to forge a connection with the viewer. The incredible is everywhere if we care to look.”
Pallister has exhibited at Britten Pears Summer Contemporary, Scottish Ornithologists Club, Society of Wildlife Artists, DSWF Wildlife Artist of the Year, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, Ferens Open, RBSA Print Prize, amongst others. A bursary award in 2018 from the Society of Wildlife Artists allowed her to create an edition of artists books for display at the Mall Galleries.
Her essays on art and nature can be read online at thelearnedpig.org
She lives near the coast of Suffolk, finding inspiration in the liminal, undefined spaces of marshland and reedbeds.
Statement
Writer and poet Kathleen Jamie has described looking at nature more deeply as the ‘simplest act of resistance and renewal’. This defiant attention interests Louise Pallister whose work is based on a concentrated and deliberate noticing, a curiosity about other animals and human/animal relationships and the desire to share this.
Pallister’s work is informed by her studies in sculpture, anatomy and life drawing, along with an interest in the early photography of animals in motion. The incremental nature of work by artists Jenny Saville and William Kentridge plays a role in her continued exploration of movement and contingency. Writing is also an important influence, particularly the deep attention of writers such as John Berger and Kathleen Jamie.
Her curiosity about other animals; their beingness, the nature of our relationships with them, is reflected in her approach. She works to reveal unfamiliar aspects of familiar animals or highlight the status of a species: extinct, endangered, or everyday.
Whether in drawing, printmaking or photography, her materials are chosen for their potential to make expressive marks, convey movement or carry additional meaning. Writing about art and nature help her reflect on the direction and journey of her art making.
Images that begin in observational drawing are transformed through contemplation into a felt impression of another species: a translation of thought onto paper. The viewer encounters the work as they might do an animal: a fleeting sensation that may evoke wildness, fragility or power, both in general and particular but that speaks ultimately of connection.
At the heart of Pallister’s practice is an empathetic dialogue with nature and with the viewer, bringing a sustained attention to other animals and our relationship with them. Inviting renewed appreciation of the natural world in a time of crisis, her work raises the prospect that by noticing and caring, we might choose to protect it…
