Louisa Tebbutt

 

Louisa is a London based mixed media artist. Versatile and imaginative yet highly technical, she combines traditional art education with an emphasis on figurative studies. Most of her original artworks are on oxidized steel, and she has recently produced a series of watercolour portraits.

National and international level, including: London, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Chicago, Boston MA (Copley Society of Art) , New Jersey, Tel Aviv, Budapest and Vienna to name but a few. She has many works in private and corporate collections around the world. Louisa has been commissioned by many celebrity clients including musicians and Hollywood A-list.

Louisa’s debut collection received considerable attention with works accepted for the screening project at the Saatchi Gallery, London. Her work heavily relies on inspiration from urban art. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This is exactly the process used when working on oxidised steel – constantly grinding away the surface to the past scribes of paint and collage from the previous point, giving the work further depth each and every time. Her latest collection and technique has developed over 12 months and has pushed the oxidisation process to extreme new levels. Louisa has perfected “painting in with nature to allow the rusting process to create the image”.

Awards:

  • Young International Art, Sotheby’s

  • Andrew Grant Award

  • ECA Windsor and Newton Award

  • Jerwood Drawing Prize

Most of Louisa’s original artworks are also available as large collectors edition hand-finished prints and also as limited edition prints, please see below and contact us here if you see a piece that you like and want to know if it’s also available as a collectors or limited edition print.

View a selection of Louisa’s works below ↓

 
From where I stand I see you - dream with your eyes wide open, there is no beauty without some strangeness. Draw a line around your thoughts and dissolve into the sky. Some people feel the rain, whilst others just get wet. We are all broken - that’s how the light gets in. We do grow up but the monsters stay. Remember, quiet people have the loudest minds and silence is so accurate… Quiet little voices.
— Louisa Tebbutt
 

To enquire about Louisa’s artworks please contact us here


Collectors Edition Hand-Finished Prints

Giclee print on german etching paper 308gsm with archival inks. Each collectors edition artwork is limited to an edition of 5 and they are usually the same size as the original artwork. The base is a print of the original oxidised steel painting and to bring each piece as close to the original as possible they are completely hand-worked in paint and mixed media to regain the texture and details of the steels. Even at close inspection, there is so much re-working of the materials that each is unique and an original art composition in their own right. Each one comes with a signed certificate of authenticity.

The collectors edition prints are usually mounted on board and framed in an obeche wood open grain tray frame (black, white, dark brown), other frames are available.


Most paintings are failures; they aren’t perfect; flawed in one way or another. Hence painting is a practice; it’s about doing something over and over again, exercising and strengthening the way we see. It’s about learning to see, noticing new things about a subject every time you draw and crafting a link to “what is out there”, forming a connection with the world and making comparisons. It is about learning how to handle materials and working both with and against the tendencies of those materials, recognizing the possibility for improvement.  It involves a constant questioning of the world of appearances and things, “believability” is the main goal of any rendering.
— Louisa Tebbutt
Oxidized steel is a material that holds traces of passing time, traces that consist of varying textures and patterns. Layering the paint the emerging image entwines itself with the medium.
— Louisa Tebbutt