Louise Gustafson – portfolio

Contact the artist

gustafson.lulu19[at]gmail.com

https://online.fliphtml5.com/INTHEKNOWMagazine/plyb/#p=1

Exhibition information

I am exhibiting with 14 other artists and makers in St. Mary’s Church, Adderbury. I will be bringing a selection of my paintings, painted wooden boxes and trays and stools, as well as printed greeting cards. I have a wide variety of sizes and prices and as I love encouraging children to start collecting art some of the smaller paintings have a separate child friendly price list. 

Many of my sales are commissions. One example is shown above and was commissioned by a couple who visited the exhibition last year and were in the process of moving from the house they had lived in for forty years. They had brought up their children there but were moving to live closer to their grandchildren. They wanted a painting that would portray the feeling of the beloved garden where their children had played and where they had so many happy memories.  The advantage of a painting over a photograph is that you can include moments that were not photographed, condense the years and capture the essence of all the memories into one painting. I met with the clients several times, walked in the garden, looked at many photographs, and did several trial runs before settling on a final composition. This was part of the email that the client sent the day after the painting was delivered: “There is not much joy around in the world at the moment, but looking at that painting will always be a bit of joy for me and a “happy place” that I suspect I will return to many times and maybe my children in the future. They grew up here and you have managed to encapsulate much that is magic for us about that bit of garden.”

I have also been commissioned to paint or draw many pet portraits, and can portray the animal in a photo realist, illustrative or cartoon style. I also have painted large abstract paintings to co-ordinate with a room’s colour scheme. 

Artist information

I am a 67 year old grandmother from West Oxfordshire and this is my third year taking part in Oxfordshire Artweeks. Most of my work is inspired by nature and the beautiful Cotswolds countryside around my home, but my love of bright rainbow colours sometimes takes me off into a different direction. I feel great joy and peace when painting, and paint for the love of it which hopefully comes through in my work.

My preferred mediums are acrylic and gouache but I also paint in watercolour and work with coloured and pastel pencils. I paint on canvas, wooden boards and also boxes and small pieces of furniture. My family says I’ll paint on anything that stays still long enough. 

I was brought up in the suburbs of London but always yearned for the countryside and fulfilled my dream by going to agricultural college and working on dairy farms (hence the cow paintings in my portfolio). My life then took me in a very different direction, to Los Angeles, California where I lived for several years before moving back to England and the Cotswold village that has now been my home for the last 35 years. 

My landscape paintings usually start off from a photograph that I’ve taken as I drive around the North East Cotswolds between Chipping Norton and Banbury. It amazes me how the soil colours can change from a buttery soft cream to red in a short distance and the sunlight seems somehow to always be touched with gold. Or maybe that’s just me after living in towns and cities for the first part of my life? Recently my paintings are becoming more textured with thicker paint so that they become almost tactile, and more unexpected colours are creeping in. I feel like I’m evolving, so watch this space.