Louise Sengupta
Nature, exaggerated. Ordinary, explored.
About the Artist
For as long as I can remember, I have been driven to create art. I started drawing and painting long before I could read and write. While in elementary school, I was fortunate to take private lessons. As a high school student, I broadened my artistic experience to include mixed media. I decided to double major in college, where I attended the College of Fine Arts with a concentration in painting and ceramics and the College of Natural Sciences majoring in Physics at the University of South Florida. This provided a most unusual, but surprisingly potent channel for my creativity. I later went on to earn a PhD in Electrical Engineering, with a concentration in Material Sciences. I found a bridge to connect ceramics used in the art world to many inventions and contributions that I made to the realm of electronic ceramics. These are currently used in many of common place consumer electronics. In spite of (or possibly due to) a fulfilling scientific career, I would and could never put aside the center of being - my desire to create and capture the very act of creation itself.
The work that is displayed here on my website spans a period of over 30 years and represents my growth as an artist and human being. In fact, some of the older works are signed with my unmarried name. The newer pieces in the photo gallery are shown in the clay on canvas collections and the figurative ceramic collections. These pieces are about my growth as a mother of four children and my subsequent connection with the feminine power of creation. This power is present in the never ending hum of nature constantly rebuilding itself by growing, decaying and regrowing over and over again. I have really enjoyed combining my two favorite media, paint and clay, and have enjoyed the elaborate textures and highly decorative palette that this offers. The play between the natural and the decorative attempts to exaggerate the natural world and heighten the aesthetic experience.
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My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the
passing of blood and air through my lungs,
...
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs
wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the
fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.
- Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
