Isabella Loudon's studio in Marton Photo: supplied
In 2021 artist Isabella Loudon returned to her family home in the town of Marton Tutaenui in the lower North Island to recover from glandular fever.
Loudon has since stayed on, making ther most of a vacant commercial building owned by her parents as studio space.
Isabella Loudon's Marton installation Photo: Isabella Loudon
The building is due to be demolished, so she’s been busy turning it into one giant installation project to create what is being dubbed an “unsettling, immersive sculpture”.
Isabella Loudon's Marton installation in a shop window Photo: Michael McKeagg - Sarjeant Gallery
It’s fitting for an artist known for her use of common industrial materials to explore more lyrical, fragile and fluid states of construction and physical being. She’s best known for her use of concrete, but has now branched into plaster, copper and discarded rubber inner tubes.
Loudon's project is pretty visible in Marton: as a former takeaway business the building has a large street-front window in the main street.
Loudon opens up her installation to the public, in partnership with Whanganui's Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua, Friday December 8 to Sunday December 10, 11am-4pm, at 214 Broadway, Marton.
Isabella Loudon's Marton installation Photo: Michael McKeagg - Sarjeant Gallery
Loudon is a fine arts graduate of Massey University and has exhibited at the Dowse Art Museum, Te Tuhi, Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi and City Gallery Te Whare Toi.
She joins Mark Amery on Culture 101 for our weekly regional wrap: introducing the cultural life of her hometown.
