Louise Dear

The other weekend I went to Brighton for the annual art's festival. Apart from watching a mind-fucking piece of puppet theatre by Canadian performer Ronnie Burkett, who I cannot recommend highly enough, I also was mesmerised by the gorgeous, candy-coloured artwork of Louise Dear. While I do not want to buy all her paintings - one or two of them I found incredibly pleasing to look at...for long periods of time. I am not obsessed with nudes...but I find tasteful female nudes irresistible...more so than the airbrushed, glossy crap that adorns the covers of so many mindless men's magazines. For me a woman’s body is so much more beautiful in paint.

Having once posed nude myself for a South African Artist (Francine Greenblatt) on some crappy TV show (of which I was seen for about 20 seconds) I fully appreciate how the artist can transform the body...or strip it down to lines and curves that exude sex...or hard lines that emphasise form. Louise Dear's work is quite spectacular to behold (even though I could only afford one of her prints). You have to see the real thing. She paints in household paint (I think) against aluminium canvases - so that the paint is thick and sticky-looking like lip-gloss.

Her work would probably repulse my more critical friends and my darling friend, Sarah, who herself is one of the most thrilling artists I know - would cringe. However, like my taste in wine – where I believe it’s important to drink what one enjoys drinking (and save the show-off stuff for when someone knowledgeable comes round for dinner) I think art that one chooses for one’s home should please one…completely. In short, unless I’m infatuated with a piece of art – I don’t want it in my house.

I can, however, appreciate artists who create thought-provoking pieces of art, displaying decaying meat covered in flies behind glass in order to reflect something about the human condition – but living in London – where so many alleyways are covered in peeling layers of history – reeking and festering – scarred in graffiti and poster art – I prefer to feed my eyes with beautiful things…if I can…and the Louise Dear painting I bought is beautiful and elegant and very, very pleasing. The pictures on this blogg don’t do her justice…but one can get the idea.