Louise Eastman

American, 1966

Louise Eastman is an artist working in weaving and ceramics. In her current body of work, Eastman weaves sets of long, highly detailed pieces on a floor loom, and contrasts them with clay bricks that frame smaller weavings and knit pieces.

The work is a continuation of her recent practice creating large hand weavings and cast bricks, reflecting the lyricism that comes from an embrace of the tactile, of materiality. Eastman further explores the profound politics of materials and crafts traditionally considered trivial, or gender bound.

Other works include large-scale weavings that are undeniably akin to the brightly colored woven potholders of the 1950’s. She combined boldly colored natural wool, acrylic wool and felt to create a textured three-dimensional mass of vibrant geometric abstraction. She also wove folded toilet paper that were stitched for strength into a seven-foot square painting, minus the paint and canvas. Trace lines of colorful thread playfully punctuate the reductive composition. Despite their Claes Oldenberg-esque physicality, the formal qualities of these artworks resist a Pop Art association.

Eastman received her M.F.A from Pratt Institute, NY, and has recently shown at Silas Marder Gallery, Planthouse Gallery and Russell Janis Gallery. She is a member of the Victory Garden Collective and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship recipient. The artist currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Courtesy of the artist