Exhibitions

Born in 1925 in Monceau (Belgium).
Died in 2010 in Liège.

Louise Tournay, better known by her pseudonym Loulou, was a home-health carer until her marriage in 1966. She was a mature student when she enrolled on an evening course of  classes in sculpture at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Liège. Once this course was under way, she never looked back. At the studio she attended, Loulou was, however, always very resistant to the formal teaching syllabus and preferred her own spontaneous approach to the subject. Her work gathers together a crowd of small figures made of clay, the only material she considers to be a truly living material – a sort of chilled skin, something I know very well she admitted, referring to her personal experience working with the sick. This statuary modelled day after day, sometimes enhanced with colours, represents various subjects used to embody the artist’s childhood souvenirs (postman, local Mayor, schoolteacher, religious zealot, curate, devil, drunkard, shopkeeper, couple, animal, etc.) or illustrate certain vices and virtues, as well as some disturbing facts about society.

Loulou’s work is kept at the LaM – the Aracine collection – at Villeneuve d’Ascq, as well as in the Collection de l’Art brut in Lausanne, and the Musée de la Création franche at Bègles.