Since 2000 Louise Bonnet has worked in thematic series such as Bathers, Ghosts and Sphinxes. Through these, she connects to art historical genres while reflecting on the present-day experience of the body. Breasts are a recurrent and prominent motif; they appear huge, giving off light like film projectors, or spraying milk like a fountain. In other cases, they are curbed or tied, preventing the female body to be free. Hair is another recurring feature, useful for hiding flesh, face and feelings. The artist refrains from showing facial expressions, which would give the figures individuality, but keeps the focus on posture and situations the bodies find themselves in. She uses scale as a compositional tool to evoke a sense of the absurd or grotesque, as when women appear with huge feet or hands but with a tiny head. All the elements together show images of the body in negotiation with the outside world, with the gazes it attracts, has to indulge, or tries to defy.

L. Bonnet has said that being able to stop thinking is one of the requirements of working as a painter in the studio. The Los Angeles-based painter works best when the critical voices in her head fall silent. Then she finds the space for the curved and bubbly figures that populate her paintings to develop freely and take the form that suits their situation. In L. Bonnet’s universe there is room for any type of body or physical behavior, no matter how strongly it challenges current ideas of what is proper, pretty, or how things should look.

The public eye, one could argue, shapes bodies and is, as a lead motif in negative, a reference here. Feelings such as shame, guilt and embarrassment have an effect on how people move, look and grow old, in unwanted or unconscious ways. Against that reality, the aim of L. Bonnet’s painting seems directed towards freedom and disruption. Showing contained rage, or staging a situation that is on the verge of exploding, are part of that. The artist grew up in a conservative, sexist climate in the suburbs of Geneva, where she attended art school (Haute école d’art et de design). In 1994 she moved to Los Angeles where she found a more respectful and accepting atmosphere.

Since L. Bonnet began using oil paint 2014 there has been a decisive change in her work, as it allowed her to find the depth and plasticity that she had been looking for. Since then, the figures appear monumental and timeless. Her approach is nourished by the history of painting; the artist finds companions in the Dutch still life painters of the Golden Age, and in modern icons such as Philip Guston (1913-1980), and contemporary artists including Paul McCarthy (b. 1945) and John Currin (b. 1962) are important to her.

L. Bonnet’s work can be found in numerous public collections, such as the Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Denver Art Museum and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. For the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition Milk of Life, L. Bonnet showed Pisser Triptych, reflecting on the cycle of human consumption and excretion. A bold subject matter in the city of water, yet depicted in such a way that it looks like a noble gathering. Painting, as L. Bonnet proves, is an act of transformation. What is fluid can become solid, what is embarrassing can be presentable, and what is difficult and heavy-handed can lose its weight, becoming something to consider with attention and amusement.