Sculptures
In the late 1940s, Bourgeois started to work in three dimensions. Whilst the tradition of painting is based on illusionary space, sculpture allowed her to make work that created a different type of engagement with its viewer. She loved the physical aspects, including carving, cutting and sewing involved in making sculptures.

Installation
By the early 1950s, Bourgeois began to think about her sculptures as environmental installations, assembling works in the gallery so that the viewer had to physically navigate the space. In this way, the space itself became part of the sculpture. In the 1960s, she began working in marble and bronze and from the mid 1990s onwards, she created work with found objects, many of which include textiles, often incorporating old clothing.

Etchings and Drawings
In the early days of her career, Bourgeois enjoyed working in printshops because it allowed her to meet other artists. She eventually bought a small etching press so she could edition at home by herself. In the last four years of her life (2006 – 2010), Bourgeois created mixed-media etchings, some of which were enhanced by hand in watercolor and gouache. Drawing was a constant and expedient practice that Bourgeois could do anywhere. She worked with a wide range of materials from ink and pencil, to ballpoint pen and colored pencil.

What are the main themes in Louise Bourgeois’s work?
Memory
Throughout her career, Bourgeois used her personal life experiences as fuel for her art. She recorded deeply personal thoughts across a range of formats: in a traditional written diary, on various loose sheets of paper and on the backs of drawings, and via an audio diary.

Childhood Trauma
Louise Bourgeois navigated a troubled childhood and much of her work is based on these early experiences. Later in life, Bourgeois suffered from depression and anxiety and engaged with psychoanalysis to help process her childhood experiences and emotions.

Emotions
The artist often explored depth of emotion and psychology across two- and three-dimensional planes of expression in her work. ‘Art,’ as she once remarked in an interview, ‘is the experience, the re-experience of a trauma.’ Bourgeois’s multiplicity of forms and materials at once embed and conjure emotions. Bourgeois’s works, which feature dramatic colors, dense skeins of thread, and large-scale sculpture, explore the complexities of the human experience and the process of looking inwards.

Motherhood and Maternity
Motherhood and maternity features prominently throughout Bourgeois’s work. Her own mother, whom she greatly admired, passed away when Bourgeois was 20 years old, and her loss is felt keenly throughout the artist’s body of work. Bourgeois also explores motherhood using imagery such as spiders, to represent the maternal predator and protector – associated with strength, vulnerability and fear.

Questions for discussion

• Does memory play a role in your everyday life? If so, what experiences come up for you? Do you weave past experiences into present moments? Is this simple or challenging? Why?

• Bourgeois is interested in the complexity of the human experience and individual introspection - is self-reflection a part of your everyday life? If so, how? Does self-reflection influence your everyday experiences?

• How are emotions a part of your everyday experience? What inspires you to be in tune with your emotions? How do you think artists are able to reflect feelings in a physical creative practice?

Additional Information
Artist Page
Teachers’ Notes: Louise Bourgeois
The Easton Foundation Artist Page
Ursula Essay: How to Peel an Orange