Louisa Ferguson’s multidisciplinary art practice is inspired by and explores themes of self and landscape centered around creative social stewardship.

Blending art, identity, restoration, and the natural environment, her work takes the form of sculpture and installation. As an artist, Louisa creates objects as a holder of intention. Her work is narrative based, often examining archetypal themes of “The Other” and how they manifest themselves in contemporary life.

Known as a glass artist, Louisa uses the ancient medium of cast and fused glass to explore tension between perfection and deterioration, strength and fragility and liminal space of opacity.
The medium of glass has allowed her to play with layers, light and translucency, and how stratums and luminousness can both hide and reveal

2 frequent techniques used in her work are pate de verre forms and cast impressions of natural objects. The Pate de verre (glass paste) technique is one of the oldest known forms of glass dating back to the early 2nd millennium in Ancient Mesopotamia. Fine glass granules (frit) are mixed with water and Gum Arabic to create a paste that is packed into plaster molds in subsequent layers. The mold is then fired in a glass kiln. Skillful packing of the glass can offer varying degrees of solid planes, transparency and fading edges.

In casting, Louisa collects objects found in areas of rewilding and road allowances which she then documents by creating clay impressions. A plaster mold is made of the fresh clay impression, and the mold is then used to cast the piece in glass. Called “dwells”, these objects serve as reliquaries of remembering and meditation on the natural world.

At present, Louisa is opening up artistic avenues by venturing further into mix media, and in beginning to investigate ecologically restorative art. Her motivation comes from needing to create work that has aesthetic appeal while also addressing environmental problems. Through research and connections with various ecological and environmental organizations in Saskatchewan, she is examining ways of creating and using natural materials in the construction of her work. This work will be site specific and will respond to the ecological need of the area in question.

Louisa graduated from Concordia University with a bachelor’s in fine arts, with distinction in performance. She is currently enrolled in a master’s in fine arts at the University of Saskatchewan.

In 2015, Louisa was awarded The Gale Steck Memorial Award for Excellence in Craft by an Emerging Artist, Dimensions 2015 and Excellence in Glass, Dimensions 2019, She was a finalist for Niche Awards 2017 and was recently selected as a finalist in the prestigious International Toyama Glass Exhibition 2018.