🖌LOO LOO-LAY - 08/04/2022 🎨 Noo-loo Kay-tay Noh-bah / Kinetic smile
by Tianita Miramax
Loo Loo-Lay is a young artist who likes to work with black wee-tah wah-tah (*ink). Autodidact, they started doing portraits of furbz in the streets of their natal town Koo Way-loh, where they drew the attention of Dee-Mak, founder of the May-bee gallery. What has interested him was Loo’s natural ability to capture life, as fragmented instants of lucidity. The exhibition is entitled “Noo-Loo Kay-tay Noh-Bah” (*Kinetic Smile) and gather thirty wee-tah wah-tah (*inks) made between 2020 and 2022, Let’s go !
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Tianita: Hello Loo ! Congratulation for your exhibition, which is visible at the May-bee gallery until June ! It must be exciting to show your work like this ?
Loo Loo-Lay: Yes ! that is a huge event for me ! I never had an exhibition before, i started doing art because it was the only thing i was good at… My family encouraged me, but it was not always easy to earn money… I think this is a big chance for me !
T: Can you describe your practice for our readers ? What inspires you ?
L: I like seeing the others, people that i know and that i don’t… I work mostly outside, i have my bag full of paper sheets that i lay on the ground, and i use my brush or a pen to create original pictures. I love doing furb faces, the eyes, the beak, they are very expressive !
T: I saw your portraits, and something very basic was questioning me : you look very colourful but you work in black and white ? Is there something to see here ?
L: Haha ! Yes i did self-portraits in black and white which is not really accurate ! I don’t really know why… I guess i really like black ink ! (laughs) I think it has this power of enlightening the dark in everyone…
People often assume that i’m always happy because of the colours of my fur, but as many, i have struggles and anxiety to deal with. I’m not saying that i’m a sad artist working on pain and stuff but using black and white allows me to go deeper in the inside. For me, it’s like diving in an alternative universe of emotions, a more direct path to someone history. Wee-tah Wah-tah is commonly used to write words, when you draw with it, it has a meaning, you tell a story. You work with contrasts, simplicity. You strike directly under the fur.
T: yeah, i get it, no artifice. That’s true, your portraits leave a feeling of sincerity, purity.
L: I feel a little bad now that i have talked about darkness, because i don’t want people to think my work is depressing…! I like to quickly capture what my eyes can not see when i look at a furb. It’s a gesture, very instinctive, and the water helps me adding some nuances, some blur, to leave a kind of intimacy to the furbz who are portrayed. “Kinetic Smile” is an expression to go behind the act of smiling, when people are posing for example, this can be a mechanic reflex hiding something else, not always negative, but something else.
T: Don’t worry ! I can testify that your exhibition has nothing sad or depressing ! What i understand is that you want to go beyond the appearances. The result is very dreamy, i could easily forget the world outside looking at your paintings. The furbz almost become landscapes…
L: Yes ! I like to imagine that each person has their own inner map, inner land… Sometimes, the models let me see those personal spaces and that is what i enjoy the most when i work ! They are precious gifts… I want to keep up the effort to translate them on the canvas !
T: Thank you very much Loo ! I wish you the best for the future and i highly recommend your exhibition which is full of surprises !! My tah-tah way-lah is telling me that we are not done hearing about you !
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“Noo-Loo Kay-tay Noh-Bah” by Loo Loo-Lay, at the May-bee gallery 7th april - 1st june 2022