Johann Louw

Published by Sanlam Life Insurance, 2007, softcover, illustrated, 60 pages, 23.2 cms x 27.5 cms, condition: new.

Johann Louw is an introverted artist based in Cape Town. He prefers not to speak, but to rather observe and communicate with the world using his images as an intermediary. Louw does most of his work in oils on canvas and the prints that he made at The Artists' Press mirror the conceptual concerns of his paintings. Anonymous male figures occupy anonymous institutional like spaces, the figures are static and tense and become abstract in relation to the negative space around them. In some of the images, the presence of a second figure is suggested by the use of shadow. Who does this shadow belong to? Is it yours, the viewer, or that of the artist? Or of some unknown person who can only inhabit your imagination. The suggestion is powerful.

The colours and tones that he uses are muted and restricted in range, adding to a sense of psychological tension that he so masterfully creates. Hands are excluded from the frame of the image and the faces look past one or away from the viewer. The poses are intimate and at the same time reject sympathy, bringing into question relationships of power and control. Intrigue and menace are suggested. Louw offers no interpretation in his titles, the viewer is left to respond directly to the figures and the work on an emotional level without a conscious interpretation of the work.

Johann Louw worked intensely on these images, often preferring the empty quiet of the studio space at night. His working and re-working of the surfaces and careful selection of colour and control of line have resulted in prints that are very "painterly" and deceptively simple in their style and execution.

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