Name: Awake in an Unfamiliar Air
Date: 2019
Size: 9 x 6 in, 22.86 x 15.24 cm
Material: Oil on Cradled Linen Panel
Image: Photographed by J Louis Atelier, All rights reserved

Color Fields — Arcadia Contemporary, Pasadena CA

'Awake in Unfamiliar Air' is among Louis' first works painted on a foundation of lead white and glass beads. The grainy texture, which is employed more to communicatie an idea than as a painting ground, acts aesthetically with the figure as an illusion of the memory captured in photography.
The sense of textural material exploration - analogous to much of Louis' figure works - creates a dynamic opposition between harsh and soft. Following the completion of Louis work 'Awake in Unfamiliar Air' he commented, "We capture each other through photography in order to preserve a moment, every grain a representaiton of our subjects existence at the time. Through paint the moment in grain becomes something else, unfamiliar"