A Discussion with the Artist – Louisa Longstaff-Scales

The Art Buyer are delighted to be showing a collection of original paintings by Norfolk-based artist Louisa Longstaff-Scales. Louisa talks us through her inspirations behind this body of work & the importance of intuition in her painting process. We’re very excited to delve into the thoughts and process behind this stunning collection within this interview.

Pictured: Louisa Longstaff Scales

Do your surrounding landscapes, in Norfolk, impact your work? If so, how? 

 

Living and moving through the East Anglian landscapes has had a huge impact on my work. Living in this part of the country I am always travelling through these vast expanses of sky and land, and over time I feel like I have expanded into them. This vastness is  always on the periphery of my lived experiences here.

My work is quietly autobiographical and walking is how I start my day (to process thoughts and ideas), and through spending time alone with the landscape each day, I have internalised it. The ideas that I have whilst walking are so intertwined with the landscape that I find it hard to separate them when painting. I return from the studio and paint from memory, personal reflections  and a response to the landscape.

 

Your paintings reflect a curiosity about landscapes, are there any distinct memories tied to your surroundings that first come to mind?

 

I moved to the Norfolk/Suffolk border in my early twenties and each stage of my life since then has been walked through these fields and along these shores.  I followed love here, I  learned to trust who I was in this land, I raised my children and watched them grow here . There are layers of memories here, trees that I like to visit like old friends, Stones and treasures found in fields and kept on the mantle piece. There is the edge of a field where I agreed to marry my husband. Walking through fields of oil seed rape through the low sun of a summers evening. All of my adult life has happened here and my memories are very much with this land.

 

We’d love to know more on the importance of scale in your work. Does your painting process look different for smaller versus large-scale work?

 

The process of making my paintings is very intuitive and as I paint, listening to the work and responding to the painting becomes as important as the ideas that birthed it. The paintings often take me on a journey from the original starting point.

I think that being able to use large gestures and movement when making the work on a large scale reflects my lived experience of the landscape here. When working on a larger scale there is a lot of fun to be had with the marks and gestures. Making the paintings almost feels like a dance and there is a rhythm to it, almost like a conversation with the painting.

Smaller paintings often feel more intimate when I make them, they hold more room for experimentation and vulnerable moments in the paint.

 

Which part of your painting process excites you the most? Whether it be sketching, priming, layering paint or framing?

 

I know it is controversial but I don’t keep sketchbooks or work from photographs, I prefer to work through my ideas directly in paint on the panel or canvas.  Everything happens here in the moment of painting. I think a lot about time in my work and how we experience it and move through it, and I enjoy that my paintings are a direct recording of the time it took to make them, and also a reflection of this point in my history. I like to wipe back through layers where initial marks come to the front and play with the process of time, but I like that these are my direct responses to and conversations about my lived experience.

I spend a lot of time preparing canvas and panels so that I will have a high quality surface to work on as I can really feel a well prepared surface as I paint, but this isn’t the part that I enjoy. It is always the beginning and the end of a painting. The start of a painting is always a huge amount of fun, anything is still possible. Each painting takes me on a journey and as it comes to a resolution it can really affirm the process.

 

How do you come up with the titles of your work? Are they planned out before completing the painting?

 

The titles that I use in my work are generally autobiographical. Often they are the starting point for a painting, although they can change and alter as the painting progresses, sometimes a title will come to me as I paint. They are often thoughts that I have had, an experience or something I am working through. I am actually a very private person, with a need to paint these very personal paintings. The titles suggest what the work was born from and I like to think of them as small poems. I like that they might mean something different to somebody else viewing the work also, there is a beauty in that.

 

What do you enjoy most about creating paintings as part of a commission?

What I enjoy most about painting a commission is the challenge, it makes me approach the start of a painting in a slightly different way, which can help to push my practice forward and feed back into the work. I am a bit of a romantic and I like the idea of my paintings going to well loved homes, to be trusted to make work for somebody’s home as part of their personal world, is a huge privilege and one that I will never take for granted!

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View the Louisa Longstaff-Scales collection

Pictured: A Summers Painting, Louisa Longstaff-Scales, 63 x 63 cm, £1550

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My Life in Art – Louisa Longstaff-Scales

 

My favourite artist is Turner!

 

 

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