Louise Shaw is a visual artist and maker, based in Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. After many years of working in creative fields, she established Studio 4 in 2014 which she shares with other visual arts practitioners and opens to the public for open studio events. In 2018 she joined the Warehouse Art School Continuing Practice Course at OVADA in Oxford, completing the 2 year programme in summer 2020.
Louise enjoys a deep connection with materials, and her hands-on nature continues to underpin the new socially-engaged work that is now emerging. Drawing on past experience she brings a prop master's sensibility to the carefully considered objects that set the tone in her installations.
Through anonymous public participation, Louise invites others to respond, and in wondering what they might do, yields control of the final outcome. With live human contact at the heart of the work, she invites a handwritten note, an ad lib voice message, a physical interaction; enjoying the possibilities of what lies beyond the material as she brings these two strands together.