LOUISE BONNET
Known for her portraits of exaggerated proportions and grotesque features, Louise Bonnet (b. 1970) continually explores emotions of melancholy, loneliness, nostalgia and grief in her works on canvas or paper. Her strong sense of corporeality and precise observation of the tension and movements of body parts result in bending extremities, bloated noses, swollen hands and feet. Bonnet’s protagonists, often situated in everyday environments and domestic interiors, appear involuntarily stretched. Their bodies seem to reflect a disturbing discomfort, an uneasy state of mind that makes their limbs writhe.
‘Bonnet’s is a world of pulsing, sometimes even grotesque exaggerations, where beings inhabit traits that fluctuate in a kind of gender-blended state. Often alone, sometimes with a counterpoint, usually occupying the lion’s share of the composition, almost jammed within the framework of the canvas, with appendages acting more like geysers of feeling, manifesting from deep within. Think more beings functioning as psycho-emotional allegories wherein the inner agonies of plight emerge, baring themselves shamelessly for all the world to ponder.’
A. Nelson, Exquisite Agonies: The Art of Louise Bonnet in Louise Bonnet, Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles 2018
Image: Asteria Pink, 2024, oil on linen, 213.4 x 177.8 cm.; 84 x 70 in. Photo: def image
Artist Talk
Selected Works
Solo Exhibitions
Group Exhibitions
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
Biography
VITA
1970
Born in Geneva, Switzerland
Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick
Denver Art Museum
Fondazione Re Rebaudengo, Turin
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
Long Museum, Shanghai
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
MAMCO Genève, Geneva
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Museum Brandhorst, Munich
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Yuz Foundation, Shanghai
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
Reversal of Fortune
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
2023
30 Ghosts
Gagosian, New York
Entanglements: Louise Bonnet and Adam Silverman (duo show)
Hollyhock House, Los Angeles
2022
Onslaught
Gagosian, Hong Kong
2021
Bathers
Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris
Vagabond
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
Sphinxes
Gagosian, Basel
2020
The Hours
Gagosian, New York
New Works
Galerie Max Hetzler, London (catalogue)
2018
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
New Works
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
2017
Wakefield
Half Gallery, New York
2016
Paintings
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
On Paper
Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris
2022
Beach
Nino Mier Gallery, New York
Dark Light: Realism in the Age of Post-Truths
Aïsthi Foundation, Beirut
Swiss Made
Gagosian, Gstaad
Women Painting Women
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Haunted Realism
Gagosian, London
The 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia: The Milk of Dreams
Venice
2021
Stretching the Body
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
Inaugural Exhibition
Nino Mier Gallery, Brussels
2019
Feelings – Kunst und Emotion
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Domestic Horror
Gagosian, New York
Some Trees, curated by Christian Malycha
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
2018
Cliche
Almine Rech Gallery, New York
10
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
2017
SUMMERFEST 2017, curated by Lauren Taschen
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
2016
Global Times Painting Painting To, curated by Alex Becerra
Half Gallery, New York
Human Condition
John Wolf Art Advisory & Brokerage, Los Angeles
Giles
Gagosian Gallery, Athens
Please Have Enough Acid in the Dish
M+B, Los Angeles
Surrreal
König Galerie, Berlin
2015
The Mini Show
The Lodge, Los Angeles
2008
New Works
Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwath Publications: Louise Bonnet, Berlin, 2020
Nino Mier Gallery (Ed.): Louise Bonnet, Los Angeles, 2018
Videos
Publications
Louise Bonnet: Reversal of Fortune
Exhibition Poster
2024
€ 15.00
Louise Bonnet: Entanglements
Inventory Press / Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London | Marfa
With an essay by Abbey Chamberlain Brach
€ 54.00
Louise Bonnet
Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London / Holzwarth Publications, Berlin 2020
With an essay by Flavia Frigeri
Out of stock
Selected Press
The New Yorker November 2023
carla Summer 2023
Cultured Magazine 2023
Numéro September 2022
Autre Magazine Spring/Summer 2022
Artforum October 2021
Buffalo Zine No.11, Spring/Summer 2020
Juxtapoz February 2020
MUSE 54 2019
Sleek Magazine June 2019
Artforum February 2019
Juxtapoz January 2019
Purple Magazine Fall 2018
LALA mag Spring 2018
