Her creative process typically starts with meticulously crafted digital compositions, onto which she layers manual interventions such as painting. The bold strokes of her brushwork yield a deeply tactile finish, evoking echoes of Japanese lacquer and gesture painting. Throughout both the digital and manual processes, Louise allows experimentation to prevail. She values unexpected discoveries and chance encounters, seeing them as vital sparks in a world increasingly dominated by predictability and reproducibility.
What sets Louise's work apart is its profound depth. Through sincere, abstract forms, she conjures imagery that resonates the vastness of the universe as well as the intricate world of cellular life — and beyond. Viewing Louise's work is akin to disappearing into the surreal worlds of a telescope, a microscope or a caleidoscope. The elusive depth is Louise's everlasting fascination: unreachable places beyond humanity and civilisation, sensorial worlds devoid of language, where only shapes and colours communicate.
Studio Louise Mertens produces both autonomous and applied visual art and design, with the latter extending from the former. The vision conveyed in her autonomous art forms the leitmotiv in her role as a multidisciplinary creative director. Regardless of the task at hand, Louise leaves an distinctive mark that is undeniably hers.