Liza Lou Turns to Color Again in New Work at Thaddaeus Ropac
For years, American artist Liza Lou (b. 1969) has used labor-intensive materials to test the boundaries of painting, sculpture, and craft. Now, in a new body of work at Thaddaeus Ropac in London, she is returning to solitude, to color, and to a medium she has made unmistakably her own: glass beads.
Lou, who lives and works in California’s San Fernando Valley, first drew wide attention with “Kitchen,” the full-scale interior she built alone over five years, from 1991 to 1996, covering every surface in tiny, vividly colored beads. She later spent 15 years collaborating with a group of women in South Africa on bead-encrusted sculptures that moved toward a more restrained palette. Her latest work reverses that trajectory. It pairs oil paint with beads and brings color back to the center of the studio.
In the interview, Lou describes color as something close to a philosophical pursuit. She speaks of its “laughter,” its necessity, and its ability to offer relief from surrounding darkness. Her process begins with drawing in oil sticks until, as she puts it, her mind shifts “from logical brain to wild brain.” After that, the day becomes more improvisational, with beads and paint working side by side.
The Mojave Desert has also become part of that visual education. Lou says she spends time there noticing how a landscape that seems sparse at first reveals saturated chroma on closer looking: a peacock-blue sky against a peach boulder, a blood-red plant against sage brush. She sometimes gathers small samples of sand in glass vials, treating color almost as a physical substance to be carried back to the studio.
That sensibility has taken on new force in her current workspace, a windowless warehouse in an industrial part of Los Angeles. At first, she found the darkness oppressive. Over time, she came to see it differently. The studio’s blackness, she realized, mirrors the condition of making art itself: one begins without clarity, then gradually the light comes on. In that frame, the canvases become windows, and the artist’s task is to create the view.
“Liza Lou: FAQ” is on view at Thaddaeus Ropac, London, until May 23.
