Louise McRae

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Small holes in the silence, 2024
Aluminium, steel, automotive paint
900 x 4400 x 4200mm

Louise McRae is an artist deeply interested in materiality, exploring
the subtleties of how sculpture can connect and respond to different
environments. With vigorous, looping aluminum shapes, McRae’s
Small holes in the silence appears to bounce over the landscape,
conjuring a sense of kinetic energy.

The title borrows a line from a poem called ‘Rain’ by New Zealand
poet Hone Tuwhare; a beautiful meditation on the invisible yet
unstoppable power of water. McRae seeks to give this force a
physical shape through sculpture. As she describes:

“Water nurtures us, necessary for life. We swim to cool ourselves in
the heat and enjoy the magical medium on our skin. When the rain
intensifies it roars on our roofs and rages down gullies and streets
with frightening power, able to destroy all in its path. The sound of
rain is captured and pressed into the surface of the aluminium, the
form rolls over ground. It is fascinating to me how a tiny gentle drop
repeated exponentially can become an unstoppable force.”

Small holes in the silence
Small holes in the silence
Small holes in the silence
Small holes in the silence
Small holes in the silence
Small holes in the silence
Small holes in the silence
Small holes in the silence

More from this artist

Artist Bio

Louise McRae was born into a farming family on the Kaipara Harbour. With her three older brothers nearly a decade older than her, she spent a large amount of time alone “riding horses on that coastline, imagining.”

Many years later, McRae was introduced to painting and developed a largely self-taught practice of assemblage works of paintings broken apart into pieces. She was interested in the space between and the freedom of the reassembled material. McRae then went on to complete a Master of Fine Arts at the Whitecliffe College of Art and Design in Auckland.

Realising a love for working with form, McRae has moved into creating sculpture, describing the search for form as a constant learning experience. She has not, however, moved away from her painterly roots, and instead describes herself as a painter first with an interest in form.

Fundamental to my process-based practise is materiality. Material is what it is, it is here, now, completely present. With its particular strengths and limitations. I am interested in pushing the material, toward and beyond its boundaries, pulling back just at the moment it collapses. Capturing the moment it teeters on the edge of collapse, the energy and the urgency of the making is contained within the work. Inventing process, by using material in an unusual way, develops a tension between honesty and the unexpected. Not all is as it seems.”

McRae has participated in solo and group exhibitions, and has been a regular finalist in the Wallace art awards.