New York-born artist Liza Lou spent her early childhood living in various parts of the U.S. “When I was 10, my mom packed up my sister and me into the family station wagon, and we fled to Southern California to start a new life,” she says. “Sitting in the back seat, I saw miles of green-grass lawns and suburbs, which gave way to the blitzed landscapes of the Arizona desert and eventually to the cove-lined beaches of San Diego.”
For the past 30 years, the now L.A.-based artist has created innovative sculptures, paintings, drawings and room-sized environments — like Kitchen (1991-96), a large-scale installation composed of shimmering beads. “In some ways, my work has followed the course of that epic drive west,” she says, “from monumentally scaled works centered in the American suburbs to recent work that has opened out into landscape, abstraction and meditation.”
Lou is one of five contemporary artists from around the globe who have teamed with Louis Vuitton to reimagine the house’s iconic Capucines bag — an homage to Rue Neuve-des-Capucines, the Parisian street on which Vuitton opened his first store in 1854. Now in its fifth year, the Artycapucines collection launched in 2019 and features limited-edition designs that marry 29 artists’ perspectives with Louis Vuitton’s signature craftsmanship. Following works with collaborators including Daniel Buren, Alex Israel and Beatriz Milhazes, the 2023 collection — releasing in late fall and available in select stores — is designed by Lou, Malawian artist Billie Zangewa, Polish painter Ewa Juszkiewicz, Franco-Serbian duo Tursic & Mille and Chinese artist Ziping Wang.
The Capucines bag’s refined silhouette serves as a starting point. “With the team of artisans at Louis Vuitton, there was a shared love for experimentation and rigorous attention to detail,” says Lou of her pastel leather design. “I wanted to see if we could make my Artycapucines bag look as though it was draped with one of my Clouds paintings on woven glass beads, without there being any actual beads on the bag.”
While her work can take months or years to craft, Lou embraced the excitement and possibilities afforded by fashion’s comparatively fast-moving timeline. “I loved the challenge of working on something which is going to be touched and worn,” she says. “So even though it’s a project that would seem to be removed from my hand, it’s actually very intimate.”
Source : LosAngelesMagazine
