Liza Lou

Liza Lou (born 1969) is an American visual artist.

She is best known for producing large scale sculpture using glass beads.

Lou attended the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, California, but dropped out in 1989 when it became evident her professors did not take her work with beads seriously.

Lou came to prominence with the 168 sqft work Kitchen (1991-1996), a to-scale and fully equipped replica of a kitchen covered in beads.

Kitchen questioned the ideas of 'women's work' just as the studded material challenged the distinction between 'serious; male art and women's arts and crafts.' The work was first shown in part as Kitchenette in 1994 at the California State University, Fullerton art gallery.

Following a promising opening, Lou sent postcards of the installed work to American curators she admired.

in 1995, Lou successfully captured the attention of Marcia Tucker, founder of the New Museum.

The work took five years to complete and was followed with Back Yard (1996-1999), for which Lou enlisted the help of volunteers to recreate grass in a 525 sqft model of a backyard.

Lou's career has subversively pushed the glass bead as a medium in art making from early representational works to more abstract works which evolved out of her time collaborating with skilled bead artisians in South Africa.

Lou's practice evolved from themes of labor and craft to include community.

Her expansive practice formed out of necessity as many hands were needed to continue to weave and sew large scale beaded sculptures and installations.

Kitchen was first exhibited in its entirety at the New Museum in a 1996 group exhibition called "A Labor of Love."

The experimental group show included 50 artists whose practice embraced labor-intensive process or craft in unique ways.

Tucker assured Lou that her curatorial intention was not to reinforce stereotypes but to challenge "cherished hierarchies" by exhibiting work that pushed the boundaries of what makes a work "art."

Lou won the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2002 and the Anonymous Was a Woman Artist Award in 2013.

Lou single-handedly created this career launching installation throughout the first decade of her 20's. Kitchen is a 168-square-foot mosaiced fully furnished kitchen with millions of shimmering glass beads.

The installation took her five years "and a few pair of tweezers" to complete.

Components such as cereal flakes were fashioned with paper mache then coated with glue and glass beads.

Kitchen is a statement on the invisible yet powerful value of women's labor.

Lou ran a studio in Durban, South Africa from 2005 to 2014.

She currently has a nomadic practice, working mostly outdoors in the Mojave Desert in southern California.

Lou's work is grounded in domestic craft and intersects with the larger social economy.

Liza Lou was born in New York City, and raised in Los Angeles.

In 2005, Lou established a studio in Durban, South Africa, a complement to her studio in Los Angeles.

Lou reached out to an organization called Aid to Artisans with an idea that her bead practice could provide income in high crises communities.

Their dialog resulted in Lou's moving to Durban to work with a collective of Zulu women.

At the time, Durban was the epicenter of the HIV epidemic and unemployment was as high as 70% in the townships.

In Durban, Lou created many sculptures and paintings working "elbow-to-elbow" with 50 highly skilled South African Zulu beadworkers.

Lou has said that working in Africa imparted to her the importance of how an artwork is made, in that the making cannot be separated from the meaning of the work.

Lou returned to Los Angeles in 2014 but continued to run her Durban studio, commissioning woven panels and canvas that would be incorporated into her installations.

Lou's current practice often finds her working outdoors in the solitude of the Mojave desert.

Lou is revealing more of her own hand in newer works by incorporating painted gestural mark making.

“[Solitude] has given me the opportunity to explore my own gesture in ways that I haven’t done in many many years.” Lou's solitary practice embodies a challenge to stay present and grounded in the silent labor of her work.

Lou's work came to embrace process over concept as evidenced by her 2016 installation, The Waves. This work showcased a thousand white beaded dishcloth sized squares revealing marks from the hands that made them, as well as woven beads that are cracked, streaked, and stained.

Lou credits the women from her Durban studio with expanding her sense of beauty.

"I am touched by the beauty and grace of the women I have been privileged to work with, and by their joy and laughter."

However, when the 2020 Pandemic required isolation and social distancing, Lou found enforced solitude onerous.

She took to Instagram to invite the public to join her a in communal project called Apartogether, in which she prompted artists and the public to gather together materials and old clothes to piece together a quilt or more symbolically a "comfort blanket."

She hosted artist talks and "sew-in" sessions via zoom to engage participants.

Her 2021 body of work "Desire Lines" features beaded sculptures that are monochromatic, echoing the Joshua Tree desert landscape where she often works "en plein air."