As an environmental artist, writer and educator Louise Fowler-Smith’s enquiry has been driven for many years by her belief in the universal need to reframe contemporary world views and the role that the artist can play in representing a new philosophical framework around the land. For many years her work has focused on the veneration (honouring) of trees, a subject she was drawn to not only for the magnitude of its environmental significance, but its universal and pan-religious symbolic importance.
Her work investigates anthropocene extinction, environmental justice and climate adaptation and rests at the intersection between the aesthetic approach to art and the ethical. It has been referred to as memorials for what we have lost -an ethos. Louise’s multidisciplinary exploration becomes the epitaph for how the world was - or could be.
Louise’s photographic work illuminates the natural world both physically and metaphorically. With light she paints a ‘portrait’ of the tree and captures a moment in a tree’s life. Darkness is a part of vision - it can frame something without destroying it. Through framing the natural world with darkness the specificity of that world is revealed.
More recently Louise has embarked on making multidisciplinary work based on extinct or endangered plants. Through sculpture, painting and mixed media she hopes to memorialise plants that we have lost, or risk losing.
Louise’s investigation and resultant work has spanned many continents. She has photographed in the deserts of Australia, multiple states across the country of India, in the forests of Japan, Italy and France. After traveling across the majority of India over a 10 year period, Louise has published a book titled ‘Sacred Trees of India: Adornment and Adoration as an Alternative to the Commodification of Nature’ https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-8833-2. This book illustrates and explains the practice of aesthetically enhancing the Tree as an act of veneration or worship, a subject she was attracted to not only for its enchanting beauty, but its ability to protect trees from loggers. She has also published internationally in peer reviewed Journals on this topic ( Please see under ‘Publications’).
Louise is the Founder of the Tree Veneration Society, which is based in Sydney Australia but is attracting international membership.
“How we perceive and contemplate the land affects how we treat the land. If we see the land as separate from ourselves we are less likely to honour and respect it.” Louise Fowler-Smith