Elizabeth Row

Going Forward, Looking Back

Brenda Louie
University library annex gallery
September 8th-October 24th
Expressionism

Brenda Louie is a California based artist and she has been exhibited in
many local as well as international museums and galleries starting in the late
1980s. Louie has a Master of Arts from California State University Sacramento as
well as Master of Fine Arts from Stanford University. She has work in both private
and public collections in china, the United States, and the Middle East. Some of
the most notable places are the Crocker art museum in Sacramento, university of
California Davis, the China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou, and Ningbo University
in china. Louie teaches studio art at California State University Sacramento
where she has been a faculty member since 1996. Louie bases her artistic
practices on experimentation and research. She draws from a wide range of
artistic and scholarly sources and her themes often reflect upon her diverse
history. In the United States Louie was drawn to the fluid and spontaneous
brushwork of abstract expressionism. Expressionism is a cultural movement
originating in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century that celebrates
subjective perspectives and distortion for emotional effect and the transmission
of personal responses rather than accurate depictions of the world. A view of art
as communication of emotion.
Going Forward Looking Back is an exhibition of two and a half decades of
work by visual artist Brenda Louie. The exhibitions selected works provide
viewers with a reflective survey of Louies evolving styles, highlighting the

breadth of her artistic practice. Evident in her diverse styles and the range of
media with which she works, is a sense of restlessness in seeking to realize or
pinpoint the underlying themes and intersections of aesthetics and theory that
distinguish her native culture. This career-long focus has developed alongside an
interest in communicating her experiences as a migrant artist who identifies
borders in order to defy them.
Mapping of Memory Series-Foot Journey Series I
Mixed media, 84x180 inches, 1993-2010
This work has been exhibited in the Stanford Gallery at Stanford University
in 1993, Judith Weintraub Gallery in 1993, and at Solomon Dubnick Gallery in
Sacramento, California in 2001. This work is the first in Louies Foot Journey
Series. In this painting the colors used are all very neutral earthy tones. The
colors used are mostly a rusty reddish brown, tan, and black. The black is used
very sparingly because it is only used in the symbols that are used in the
painting. This painting is very interesting because it resembles a map of the
world. Also it depicts what could be seen as Chinese symbols across what could
be considered three of the continents on earth. This painting depicts Louie
looking back on her life and remembering her life in China before she immigrated
to the United States. She is remembering where she came from all those years
ago. So like it is said in the title of this show she is looking back.

Mapping of Memory-Foot Journey Series III

Mixed media, 84x180 inches, 1993
This work has been exhibited at the Stanford Gallery at Stanford University
in 1993, Judith Weintraub Gallery in 1993, and at Solomon Dubnick Gallery in
Sacramento, California in 2001. This work is the third painting in Louies Foot
Journey series. This painting like the first in this series is made up of all neutral
earthy tone. This painting is predominately tan with shades of browns as well as
different shades of orange. What really stand out in this painting are the shapes
at the very top of the painting. The shapes at the top of the painting look like
hands trying to grasp at each others fingertips. The meaning that could be
derived from this painting is that she does not want to let go of the past. Or in
other words Louie does not want to forget where she came from so she is
grasping on to her memories from her life when she lived in china and when she
immigrated to the United States. She is expressing how she feels about where
she is in her life now and where she was in her life in the past.
Garden Series 101, Under Troubled Waters III
Oil on canvas, 66x108 inches, 2010
This work has been exhibited at the James Kaneko gallery at the American
River College in Sacramento, California in 2010. This work depicts what could be
seen as a field of flowers. Louie uses mostly warm colors in this work with a little

bit of cool colors to add some contrast. What draws the viewer into this painting
is fact that it is predominantly warm colors. Warm colors seem to pop more than
cool colors do so since this painting is made from mostly warm colors it is going
to stand out to the viewer. What is interesting about this painting is that even
though it doesnt really look like something you would see in a garden you can
still somewhat sense that it is supposed to be depicting a field of flowers.
Rivers United Series, 02-2013
Acrylic on canvas, 72x216 inches, 2013
This work has been exhibited at the Blue Line Gallery in Roseville,
California in 2013 and is currently in the library at California State University,
Sacramento. This work is made up entirely of different shades of the color blue.
This is my favorite of all of Louies work in this show. This painting makes you
feel like you are under water and you have opened up your eyes and are looking
up towards the surface and you can see the sun shining down onto the water.
The blues in this painting look like what you might see when you are in the
Caribbean and you are at the beach.
In Brenda Louies show Going Forward Looking Back she really shows her
use of abstract expressionism. Expressionists assert that artists are people
inspired by emotional experiences, who use their skill with words, paint, music,
marble, movement, and so on to embody their emotions in a work of art, with a

view to stimulating the same emotion in an audience. You can see the emotions
that Louie puts into her work. These emotions are especially evident in her series
of paintings called Mapping of Memories- Foot Journey Series. It is my
understanding that this series of paintings depict Louie looking back on her life
when she lived in China before she immigrated to the United States. It seems like
with this series of paintings Louie is trying to show that while it is okay to look
back at your life to see how far you have come but you also need to let go of the
past and look forward to what is happening in your life at that moment in time and
to think about what you need to be doing in order to get to where you want to be
in your life. This is really evident in the third painting of her Foot Journey series
because in this painting at the very top it looks like it is depicting two hands
barely grasping each other at the very tips of the fingers. It is unsure if the hands
are trying to stay grasping one another or if they are trying to find the courage to
let go and continue on with their lives. In my opinion, I believe that the hands are
trying to be courageous enough to let go and move forward with what they need
to be doing in life. I feel like I can understand why Louie would name her show
Going Forward, Looking back, especially since the two paintings in her Mapping
of Memory-Foot Journey series were both predominantly showcased in this
showing of her work.
Many of Louies paintings in this show remind me of Joan Mitchells
paintings. Both Louie and Mitchell are abstract expressionists. Like Mitchell I

believe Louie does not want to improve or mirror nature but rather to paint her
emotional experiences and memories of it. Although unlike Mitchell who did not
view her paintings to be about her own life but about metaphors for our own
existence, Louies paintings are very much about her own life. Louie talked about
how she got inspiration from her father and how that can be seen in her series
Mapping of Memory-Foot Journey series.
This show is very interesting with a very diverse set of paintings. It is a
very good example of what abstract expressionism paintings look like.

Strategies for introducing the show to students

If I was a teacher and I was introducing this show to my students I would
first give them background information about the artist. I would want to get my
students interested in the artist first before I even took them to see the show.
Then after I gave them knowledge about the artist I would take them to go look at
the show. Once we were at the show I would let them look around on their own
for around twenty minutes or so, so that they would be able to take their time with
each painting and not feel rushed to look at all of the works. Then once everyone
was done I would have the students go stand by what was their favorite painting.
Once I did this I would then ask some students why it is that this was their
favorite painting. I would like them to be able to tell me what it is that drew them
to that particular painting. Then after that, depending on how big the class is, I
would assign them to groups of two or three and then assign each group one of
the paintings. I would want them to find out as much information about the
painting they were assigned as well as what they think the meaning behind the
painting is. So essentially I would want them to become experts on the painting
that they were assigned. Then I would have the students make a presentation on
the painting they were assigned and then present it to the class. Then finally I
would have each of the students pick a painting from the show that they liked or
thought was interesting or didnt understand but would like to learn more about it
so that they did understand it and then write a paper about what they thought

about the artwork, why they think it is art, what theory of art that they think the
painting fits into, and why they chose that particular piece from the show.

Barrett, Terry. Why Is That Art?: Aesthetics and Criticism of Contemporary Art. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.