Image courtesy of the artist
“To find someone doing something so imaginative and original is quite rare. She just really understands nature and how to emulate it.”
Janice Blackburn, Curator
“I use natural materials, en masse. I hope my language of form may feel strangely familiar to the natural world. It is my goal that my work might bring some intrigue into both natural and built environments, creating work that might serve to remind us that nature can still surprise us.
My work is also focussed on the human, physical experience within woven spaces or ‘burrows’ – although I joyously admit that the immersive process and the almost primitive nesting instinct it releases means that the main recipient of the experience is me.”
Laura Ellen Bacon creates large-scale work using natural materials in landscape, interior and gallery settings which have included Saatchi Gallery, Chatsworth, New Art Centre, Somerset House, Sudeley Castle (for Sotheby’s) and Blackwell – The Arts and Crafts House in Cumbria.
In 2017 she was a finalist within the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize at the V&A and she was selected as Jerwood Contemporary Maker in 2010.
In 2018 her work inspired the composer Helen Grime, whose resulting three-part movement, ‘Woven Space’ was performed at the Barbican by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
“It seems impossible to look at Bacon’s sculptures without asking how they have been made. Their apparent simplicity of form is deceptive and we see on closer inspection that they consist of a complicated system of knots and weaves, allowing us to consider their inner structure as well as their outward appearance in much the same way as we regard the pierced, hollow forms of Hepworth and Moore.
They have a powerful and muscular – if not ominous – presence, with each willow stick creating a distinctly taut and sinewy appearance. They enthral and inspire wonder, not only for their size and intricacy, but because no one looking at them can ever quite believe that Laura Ellen works alone or that she achieves such great speed.
Ultimately she takes mundane materials and traditional methods to create something strange, beautiful and compelling.”
Stephen Feeke
