louise bonnet

los angeles
art
louise bonnet

interview by BILL POWERS
photography by OLIVIER ZAHM

Louise Bonnet arrived in LA from Geneva as a young graphic designer for a one-year job and never left. Now a painter, she’s inspired by comics, Popeye, Peter Saul, and Surrealism. She inflates parts of women’s bodies — noses, breasts, arms, and legs — to look like bubblegum, balloons, or funny sex toys, then covers the faces with haircuts shaped like a penis. Her paintings expose the bizarreness of human psychology and sexuality. They are male and female, part friendly and part grotesque, exaggerated but never embarrassing as they seem to reflect unexpected brain activity.

LOUISE BONNET, UNTITLED, OIL ON LINEN, 2018

BILL POWERS — Tell me how you came to live in Los Angeles.
LOUISE BONNET — After graduating from art school in Geneva, I planned to visit LA for a year….