Louise Samuelsson
We have lived through the same events, but unlike me, you remember everything. You hold it all inside you. Let go through a collection of repetitive stitches, gestures, and acts. My body remembers. Trauma recovery is never linear. It is a looped transition built of tiny moments, asking themselves again and again, if they can change for the better. These textiles are torn, tugged, and mended just like human bodies. They let you pass beneath their surface, decorate them, and hold you close. Every stitch is an acknowledgement of a story, a person, a moment in time. A wound takes time to heal and embroidery takes time to form. I've drawn on my nordic culture to create bind-runes and pull symbols from stories, finding comfort in their certainty. In a time when we are all recovering and living with uncomfortable transitions, I want my works to speak to that change with sympathy and wisdom.
Louise Samuelsson is a Swedish artist who has been living and working in Naarm (Melbourne) since 2018. Poetics, the visceral, and the corporeal are at the forefront of her written and practical work. Through her work, she interweaves the complexities of emotions where the dichotomies of trauma and healing are translated into practice. The collective trauma of COVID-19 on the world's population has brought acts of care to the forefront of people's minds and Louise continues to work through these new influences. In 2020 she was awarded The Metasenta Projects/Global Centre for Drawing - Drawing Prize. That same year she partook in a remote artist residency with NGArts Creative, Eygalieres, France. Most recently in 2022 she completed a short term artist residency with Gasworks Arts Park, Melbourne.