ABOUT THE ARTIST
Louise Heller is the perfect example of a person with a vocation. She began drawing and painting when she was a child and has never stopped. When Louise was very young, she had to choose between painting and music. Fortunately for us, she chose painting. Looking closely at her work, you can find musical echoes in her paintings—as if, in the end, she had the capability of joining both disciplines into a single work.
If you watch Louise while she creates her art, you will be convinced that she thinks with her hands. She works quickly and applies the first colors with precise movements. She draws definitive lines full of color and seldom needs to correct a stroke. Louise works directly on the canvas and continues working until she produces a result that is an example of pure, fresh art. It is as if John Ruskin's famous sentence was written for her: In art less is more.
Louise's work has passed through different stages that have been influenced by her living environment. While studying art in Sweden, her palette was dark and very dense. Her work consisted of portraits, internal visions and the self-portrait—a theme that has developed throughout her career.
While in Kenya, Louise let the landscape come into the canvas. Wide and wild horizons appeared in light and bright colors. Her paintings, at times, seemed to be constructed in planes armed as puzzles—a distant resemblance of De Staël. During this stage, she produced fine abstract drawings and showed her work in solo exhibitions throughout Kenya and Uganda. She also began teaching young artists her unique style of painting.
Kenya's light and people help to Louise develop her definitive style—which she continues to developing today while residing in Mexico. The body of work she has created over the last thirteen years in Mexico primarily includes landscapes, portraits, and a new subject—her Mexican daughters. For a time, Louise explored the marine world in the costume of mermaids—leaning towards a new kind of self-portrait. Louise has exhibited her work in galleries and cultural centers in various Mexican states and her work has been published in magazines and newspapers. She also continues to teach her craft as well.
—Fernando Alba
Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, June 2007