Dreamscapes 53I had always been fairly skilled at representing things on a 2D
surface,” Louis recalls. Creativity came easy to him, and although
he took AP art classes throughout high school, it was his prowess
in soccer that provided him a scholarship to the Savannah College
of Art and Design in Georgia (and he almost made it onto the
U.S. men’s national team). “Most people don’t know if they can
make it as an artist, so while doing art, I was focusing on sports as
well,” he says.
And while he played soccer during college and eventually earned
his BFA in industrial design in 2015, Louis says that throughout
his schooling, he never stopped painting. He explains that he would
ask people to bring him materials and, in exchange, would paint for
them for free, simply so he could create. “Any time I wasn’t studying
or practicing [soccer], that’s what I was doing,” Louis says. Eventually,
he began showing at Shain Gallery in North Carolina, and after
having his first solo, his art career took off from there.
However, it was only after getting married that Louis says he
began working in the subject matter he’s known for today, having
started out painting mostly wildlife and landscapes. “But it was
always there...Everyone thought I was crazy for deciding to switch
to figurative work because it’s notoriously hard,” he says, adding that
he knew intuitively that he needed to venture out in a new direction.
“At that, I’m always exploring what will be next. I don’t plan on
leaving figurative drawing any time soon...but I’m about to [release]
figurative sculptures in this show.”
For the first time, Louis exhibited his sculptures to the public in
addition to his two-dimensional works. While completed within the
past year, the concepts for many of them took root in his mind as
far back as six or seven years ago, taking time to allow the ideas to
grow and mature until they reached a stage at which he felt ready to
act upon them. Cast in resin with pure pigment laid over the top,
each sculpture complements four of his larger-scale paintings in the
show. The artist says he isn’t sure if anyone else has treated sculpture
in quite the same way, with the application of pure pigments, giving
the objects such intense vibrancy in their colors that they can only be
truly appreciated in person.6 7