Artist comes home – with a solo exhibition of memories

SHE grew up in the tiny village of Hatton – living at the local pub.
Her first school was Daresbury Primary, where she has happy memories of creative play.
From there it was to Appleton Hall Comprehensive – now Bridgewater High School – where she remembers two fantastic art teachers.
Now artist, illustrator and university lecturer Louise Weir is coming home – with a solo exhibition at The Gallery at Bank Quay House, Warrington from Thursday, April 13 until Tuesday, July 4.
The exhibition is an investigative journey of memory, identity and loss informed by Dickens’ novel “Great Expectations” which examines very similar themes.
Exploring the text helped Louise examine her own personal history and emotional landscape, creating a dialogue between the text, isolated memories and specific events at the time of making.
She has repeatedly visited locations from Dickens’ novel and those featured in her own poetry. They draw on memories of real characters and locations around her childhood home.
In her work, Louise creates an emotional landscape as well as a physical one.  Elements fragment, reappear and echo to create a mysterious place where the stories and memories overlap, meet and converge – “real” memories and “fictional” narratives that co-exist in parallel landscapes.
Her response to location is informed by loss, memories, and a new appreciation of what can be tied up in the memory of a “place”,  especially one we call home.
This dialogue between past and present is reflected in Louise’s methodology, which brings together a breadth of traditional and digital processes.
Weekdays, the exhibition is open from 8.30am to 5pm and on Saturdays, 10am to 3pm.