Louise Paramor, born 1964 in Sydney, is a guest at Künstlerhaus Bethanien for one year in 1999/2000 as part of the International Studio Program of the Australia Council, Visual Arts/Craft Board.
Louise Paramor obtains her working materials from the almost inexhaustible pool of everyday objects – cheap, small decorative objects and materials made of fabric, plastic foil, silver foil, wire or paper, which are mass-produced, especially in Asian countries.
The Australian artist currently prefers to work with a special paper known as “honey-comb paper”. This honeycomb paper is created by layering and gluing paper, which is then unfolded in different directions according to a specific system to create three-dimensional shapes.
For her exhibition Lustgarten in Studio III, Paramor has painstakingly crafted oversized sculptures by hand from honeycomb paper in various colors, varying the shapes of the machine-made decorative objects that served as models and translating them into larger-than-life dimensions. Visitors walking among the sculptures may indeed be reminded of a baroque pleasure garden – an impression that is reinforced by the playful, colorful lighting and the green color scheme of the room. The origin of the shapes of Paramor’s objects remains undefined; here and there they have an oriental feel or typically baroque curves. The sculptures of the “pleasure garden” placed on the floor are reminiscent of those baroque boxwood plants that were shaped into unconventional aesthetic objects by imaginative gardeners of the era.
Lustgarten is a magnificent theatrical production that seems to celebrate itself in its opulence. In contrast to the pure form often proclaimed in modernist theory, Paramor’s paper sculptures celebrate ornament and decoration on a highly sensual level.
