Tiantian Lou
Tiantian Lou is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She paints, weaves, and makes architectural environments across scales. Her works are evolving testing grounds for her to investigate the relationship between the human body and built space.
Can you tell us a bit about the process of making your work?
My projects are ongoing experiments from weaving to building and back. And textile hinges on different needs of my process as an ephemeral and flexible material. Physically, my processes are fast segments of different mediums and actions, involving elements of surprises. Conceptually, my works are evolving testing grounds for me to investigate the relationship between the human body and the built space. The current projects probe the boundary between ordinary everyday objects and the monumentality of architecture assembly, and intensionally blurring between the two. It leads to questioning the immobility of building, hence, social, cultural, and political issues concurrent with it.
Tell us more about your work in the show.
Soft Vessel is my most recent experiment probing the pliability and ephemeralness in everyday objects that are usually perceived as solid and long-lasting. Vessels are essential and ubiquitous — as intellectual and social objects, vessels reflect their chronology, culture, and ritual. From containing food for early sedentary communities to illustrating stories and demonstrating handicrafts throughout history, vessel, similar to architecture, is a subject that scales across functional, aesthetic, and cultural references.
Soft Vessel examines the art-historical category “vessel”; at the same time, reimagine the vessel as a pliable, modern object. The experiment revolves around the critique of the solidity of the vessel in our time: our contemporary nomadic life no longer has the capacity to host ceramic or glass vessels. The investigation is an extension of the thesis that more architectural components can be textiles. At the same time, the making process of Soft Vessel reflects the contemporary construction of architecture: panelization with customized patterns. Each vessel operates under a mono-print logic — a matrix with unique results.
On the other hand, beyond a design proposal, Soft Vessel is an artistic creation on its own. It involves color, shape, and geometric construction, forming a three-dimensional collaged painting. The making of Soft Vessel connects both the rigorous color studies and the surprising elements that inherently connect with a printmaking process. The vessels, while strategically painted, do not reveal themselves until each panel is sewn and propped up.
Where are some of your favorite spaces that support contemporary art or design? Now that the art has an online presence, has that changed?
Project V of course! Thank you so much for making this happen for me and Saloni!
To share a few organizations that I had amazing experiences working with before: Latitude Gallery supports and exhibits emerging Asian artist in Chinatown; Textile arts center host a great range of textile-related programs; Superhouse presents objects that oscillate between art and functional objects.
Who are some of your favorite artists? Or who has been inspirational recently?
So many!
In my everyday life over the past year, I’m most inspired by my coworkers at Two Palms — Saloni Shah, Tom Smith, Madeleine Gray, Keira Curwen, Cary Hulbert, and Stephen Bron. I have the privilege to see their processes through long stretches of time. I am slowly learning many aspects of their works from concepts to struggles, shaping a fuller picture of their works. In these intimate and everyday moments, I am immensely inspired by our conversations. And in so many ways help me to see where I am going with my projects.
Do you have any shows coming up? Anything else you would like to share?
I’m having a two-person show with Kyong Kim at Latitude Gallery in Chinatown that opens on Nov. 12th! Kyong is a fantastic artist who works in ceramics and textiles plays with the myths of utility in objects and systems.
You can view Tiantian Lou’s work as part of Unfolding Pattern on view from October 1st- November 30th, 2022. You can find her on instagram @tiantianll or visit her website here