Louise Bourgeois was a known French American Constellation artist, born 25th December 1911 – 31st May 2010. Her best-known work was her large-scale sculptures and installation piece, she would also produce paintings and create prints. She was also involved with surrealism, Feminist Art and Abstract Expressionism.
Medium: 20 etchings with watercolour, pencil and gouache on paper
Dimensions:
Image, each: 380 × 910 mm
frame, each: 478 × 1006 × 40 mm
Collection at Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by the Artist Rooms Foundation 2013
Throughout her career she explored different themes involving domesticity, family, sexuality, the body, lastly death and unconscious, which are connections to her events from her childhood.
I think this created a coping mechanism of showing how she recreated her traumas into her artwork, and that created strength into her being able to do this. Reference: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351
Louise Burgeois died of heart failure on 31 May 2010, at the Beth Israel Medical Centre in Manhattan. She had continued to create artwork until her death, her last pieces being finished the week before.
The New York Times said that her work “shared a set of repeated themes, centred on the human body and its need for nurture and protection in a frightening world.” Her husband, Robert Goldwater, died in 1973. She was survived by two sons, Alain Bourgeois and Jean-Louis Bourgeois. Her first son, Michel, died in 1990. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bourgeois
This artist used her art to reflect her traumas throughout her printmaking and sculptures to reflect her pain. This shows that mental health can make art personal and emotionally reflecting on the persons experience.
In my opinion, for artists to use their personal trauma into their work for a coping mechanism creates strength in an artist and more less inspiration from that artist.
Shana Callaghan 