Louise Oates | Pneuma

£2,500.00

Water, eco resin, wool, aluminium, stainless steel, water tank and atomiser

68 x 58 x 19 cm

2025

£2,500

€2,900

Enquire here

These recent works are Oates’ response to an ongoing body of research into permafrost whereby she positions the metabolisms of thawing ice in dialogue with notions of time, observation and structures of knowledge. The sculptures offer a lens through which to view what is percolating under the ground.

The annual rhythm of the ‘active layer’ where the permafrost respires is fast becoming one long exhale. A newly flourishing body of microbes are metabolising in a gaseous exchange with the air we ourselves breath. As seen in Pneuma, with its porous, topographical skin, atomised vapour leaches from its depths, viscerally connecting us to a process which is usually thought of as an ‘out there’ issue, detached from lived experience.

The works exist in a continual state of becoming, as if sensing themselves, the shifting of water, the breath of vapour, a consequence of the interplay of underlying, dynamic processes. They guide our gaze across their surfaces, carrying us through uncertainty. Control, we come to realise, was never ours to hold.

Water, eco resin, wool, aluminium, stainless steel, water tank and atomiser

68 x 58 x 19 cm

2025

£2,500

€2,900

Enquire here

These recent works are Oates’ response to an ongoing body of research into permafrost whereby she positions the metabolisms of thawing ice in dialogue with notions of time, observation and structures of knowledge. The sculptures offer a lens through which to view what is percolating under the ground.

The annual rhythm of the ‘active layer’ where the permafrost respires is fast becoming one long exhale. A newly flourishing body of microbes are metabolising in a gaseous exchange with the air we ourselves breath. As seen in Pneuma, with its porous, topographical skin, atomised vapour leaches from its depths, viscerally connecting us to a process which is usually thought of as an ‘out there’ issue, detached from lived experience.

The works exist in a continual state of becoming, as if sensing themselves, the shifting of water, the breath of vapour, a consequence of the interplay of underlying, dynamic processes. They guide our gaze across their surfaces, carrying us through uncertainty. Control, we come to realise, was never ours to hold.

Enquire

Louise Oates is a visual artist working in installation, sculpture and photography. Her research led practice works towards entwining industries, bodies, and planetary processes, whereby metabolisms coalesce into material narratives.
Oates’ work unfolds through systems and assemblages that allow matter to perform or reveal its own innate tendencies - an exercise in relinquishing control. Her practice navigates the tension between movement and stillness, chaos and stasis, by which things are changed and sustained through time; incorporating live growth, peristaltic pumps, and moving images alongside processes that attempt to fix or preserve through firing, curing, and photography.

By probing at what can be controlled and what remains unsettlingly beyond our grasp - both physically and epistemologically - the work aims to engage with the complex interplay of agencies, spanning the human, animal, and mineral realms at a time when accelerated environmental change and uncertainty challenge our preconceptions about stability and what we can predict.
Louise Oates is a visual artist working in South East London.

Education:
2018/21 - Slade School of Art, University College London - MA Fine Art Media + Contemporary Art Theory - Supported by the Felix Grant
2010/13 - London College of Communication - BA [Hons] Photography

Selected Group Exhibitions:
2025 - Standpoint Gallery, London - Spillâge [Curated by Haze Projects]
2025 - Salon Ac me, Mexico City
2024 - Generatio n and display, London - Ice Blink Luck [Curated by Kollektiv Collective]
2024 - GPS, London - It felt like dawn [Curated by myself, Emma Papworth and Yasmin Vardi]
2024 - Samford Vitrine, London
2023/5 - The Victoria and Albert Museum - Energy: Sparks from the Collection
2023 - The Crypt Gallery, London - Acoustic Tunnel
2022 - Xxijrah hii Gallery, London - Cosmoses
Full CV here.