Artist Statement

I decided to stop getting upset when my fiddle leaf dropped a leaf and instead see it as a gift. She was giving me a part of her to hold for a short amount of time until it shrivelled and crumbled to dust. Embroidery punctures, it hurts. With every prick of the needle, I hear the fibres tearing and smell the cellulose. Yet embroidery also brings together, it heals and embellishes. Embroidering my plant’s leaf is being in a state of make-belief and forgiveness. Resignation, sadness, beauty, care. Bringing fragility to strength. The leaf oddly corporeal. A body that will soon shrivel up around itself despite, even faster because, of my attempts to heal and embellish its broken fibres.

Artist Bio

Louise Samuelsson is a Swedish artist who has been living in 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. During these increasingly digital times, her practice has migrated over towards video and sound, complementing her ongoing research and investigations in new unexpected ways. The collective trauma of COVID-19 on the world's population has already brought acts of care to the forefront of people's minds and Louise continues to work through these new influences. She is currently in her last semester of a Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) at RMIT University and plans on completing an Honours year in 2021