PRESS
Enduring Strengths
American Art Collector
By Chadd Scott | June 2022
Looking at Louis’ new work, it’s easy to see the influence of New York. Louis and his wife moved there from Chicago almost five years ago to join a community of creatives they had made friends with. From the black outfits to the guarded postures and upright poses, the women Louis paints now reflect New York couture, the severity of the city and its verticality.
Silhouette
Albemarle Gallery
APRIL 2022
Albemarle Gallery is delighted to exhibit a new sequence of paintings by J Louis. He deploys a polished technique to paint portraits of young, beautiful women. His cast of characters throw dynamic shapes, posing like fashion models. Well-versed in the art of self-presentation, they offer themselves up to our gaze, confident in the knowledge of our eager appreciation.
Artist Focus
American Art Collector
SEPTEMBER 2021
American artist J Louis lives and works in New York City. In his early 20s, the artist was recognized for his vision and has garnered exposure rapidly, exhibiting with many of the finest representational galleries worldwide. His work is currently collected and found in numerous prestigious collections.
Reshaping Realism
American Art Collector
SEPTEMBER 2021
When John Seed published his book Disrupted Realism: Paintings for a Distracted World in 2019, he may not have known the true impact it would have in the art industry. In its title, and through the work of 38 painters, he defined a movement that had been taking shape for years—artwork that is pushing boundaries of traditional realism and playing with abstraction, distortion, line or form.
Artist Focus
American Art Collector
NOVEMBER 2021
A new body of work completed within the last year will be highlighted at Arcadia Contemporary in Pasadena, California, beginning June 22. The idea for the show, Louis says, is to create this “very dreamy space,” perhaps waking viewers up to a concept less often pondered—that qualities like softness and tenderness do not equal weakness. “I’m trying to get that feeling in my work—of amazement and empowerment—that there’s something really special and there’s always something new to uncover about [a person].”
Artist Feature
Principle Gallery
DECEMBER 2020
American artist J Louis was born in 1992 and earned his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. He currently lives and works in New York City.
Subtle Fragments
Albemarle Gallery
JANUARY 2020
The American artist J Louis is an accomplished painter of women. Their cropped and fragmentary images are strategically arranged to make dynamic and vibrant compositions. The subject is integrated into a formal schema of veils, skins and blocks of rich and subtle colour. The figure is described with a fluency of draughtsmanship; some passages are thoroughly articulated, while others are sketchily allusive. Delicately-rendered representations of flesh and hair contrast with the various textures of the surrounding painted surface.
Dreamscapes
American Art Collector
Alyssa M. Tidwell / JUNE 2019
A new body of work completed within the last year will be highlighted at Arcadia Contemporary in Pasadena, California, beginning June 22. The idea for the show, Louis says, is to create this “very dreamy space,” perhaps waking viewers up to a concept less often pondered—that qualities like softness and tenderness do not equal weakness.
Clarity in the Midst of Colour: the Paintings of J. Louis
Art Aesthetics
Shayan Barjesteh Van Waalwijk Van Doorn / AUGUST 5, 2018
For a young artist on the outset of his career, J Louis has already experimented and painted an awful lot, and his art has met with deserved praise. Women as subjects for admiration, representation and decoration, assume a prominent position in the art of J. Louis.
Scraped into focus
American art collector
2018
Painting is most often thought of as the application of paint. But removing paint has its own rewards, as is the case with the artwork of J. Louis, who uses layers of paint—some stacked tall and others scraped away to reveal a soulful underbelly of raw color—to explore the kaleidoscope of emotion that can be found in the human face.
Kinetic Energy: An Interview with J Louis
Beautiful Bizarre
Bella Harris / MAY 1, 2018
J Louis’ fascination with moments of human connection exhibits itself in his work through cleverly posed subjects and his use of texture and color amid abstracted space. Through the juxtaposition of female figures in space, he captures the exquisite strength and intricacy of women and contemplates the nature of connection. His works push the boundaries of contemporary figurative art.