Biography

Louis was born in 1968, in England, to a diversely artistic Anglo Italian family. Despite showing early talent in art, Louis did not immediately follow an artistic career after leaving school, instead pursuing a successful career in car design. During this period, he worked for well known automotive brands such as Mini, Range Rover and BMW.

Seeking a change of direction in 1999 and inspired by the work of other glass artists, he started to learn glass making techniques for himself.  Louis saw a commercial opportunity and he developed a small business primarily designing and producing glass wall tiles, which he sold through several high street chains.

It was the unique processes and techniques he developed during this period as a glass designer-maker, which lead him to produce his first collection of art, which he exhibited in 2007. This collection of fused-glass cityscapes of London & New Yok was quickly snapped up by Washington Green Fine Art Publishing, who now publish his work and sell it through a large gallery network around the UK. The fact that Louis was signed to a publisher folllowing his first collection, is extremely unusual and highlights the uniqueness of his work.

Louis tends to use iconic photo-realistic images and bold colour in his work, not just as a homage to the Andy Warhol legacy but also demaded by the nature of the medium. Colours and lines have to be strong and clear, graduations are impossible to manage in the glass firing process, so images must be instantly recognisable. Although best known for his glass work, more recently Louis has been working on entirely new themes and with different mediums such as silkscreens, lenticulars and giclee prints.

His latest collection (2010) is called ‘Most Wanted’. The inspiration was an early series of silkscreens by Andy Warhol, which featured the mug-shots of FBI ‘most wanted’ criminals. Instead, he has created a series of portraits using vintage mug-shots of iconic figures from popular culture. The images were sourced from police departments, newspaper cuttings and public records. These candid shots were usually taken quickly with instamatic or poloroid cameras by unknown cops or clerks who handled the booking photograph at the time of arrest. This gives them a totally raw and authentic quality. But the real appeal of these images lies in the fact that ‘Everybody loves a bad boy’

Biography written by Emma Fawcett, 2010.