Until Finally From Somewhere: LOUISE HARDY

LOUISE HARDY: UNTIL FINALLY FROM SOMEWHERE

25 June - 11 July 2026

In previous bodies of work, Louise Hardy would infuse abstracted spaces with subtle silhouettes of destroyed buildings, urban spaces and aftermaths, grafting layers of information onto one another, subtly suggesting troubled topographies. Linguistically, this earlier methodology ushered in something which she has been developing ever since: networks of lines, zones of tone or pigment and instinctively placed glyphic marks, gathering into occasional frenzies of information. But where she was previously suggesting destruction, Hardy’s process seems now to be that of formation or amalgamation, primordial even. Occasionally the logic of space, borrowed from actual source material, is drafted or even stencilled into a painting, acting as an antagonist: something to be immersed in subsequent gestures and dressings of paint, something to be built upon, contradicted or redacted.

Recent visits to Hardy’s studio reveal intense and prolific groupings of drawings and paintings in various sizes and on a variety of surfaces. Perhaps informed by a muscle memory developed while laying out the complex perspectival territories of her earlier works, these are more dynamically rendered. Lines intersect with the logic of spacial suggestion, but they mass and tangle without the burden of physics and representation. These nests of gesture often coalesce, sitting on top of light, kinetic sweeps of colour, where Hardy corrals them. They take on weight, moving from punctuation to chorus. Composition is key. Hardy sometimes segments a painting or drawing with layers of pigment but often it is her kinetic marks which, herded together, occupy cleverly allocated parts of the picture plane.

Hardy’s is a formal process; one which owes a debt to the legacy of abstract expressionism. Her studio is a reflective and contemplative place. Activity upon activity leads to activity. She is relentless and critical, using a morning’s work to ask key questions for the afternoon. Repetition and a focus on material process means that whole groups of paintings and drawings lead one another into orchestrated development. As such, minute but crucial variations in intent and outcome result in unique and intricate artworks. They are produced in groups, chattering with one another, but viewed individually reward us with slow looking. Formally they are confident and sit solidly, making space for themselves, but on approach they shift and buzz. We are compelled to untangle them. Hardy refers to the noise in the work as a type of “synaptic crackling”. Perhaps, when she is this focused, consciousness gives way to instinct? One can experience her works as acts of performative, energetic making, or concede to become enchanted with their detail on an atomic level.

Reece Jones. May 2026.

All artworks are for sale