Louise Despont

Using pencils, compasses, rulers, and stencils, Louise Despont works intuitively and meditatively to create intricate, symmetrical designs on old, gridded sheets. She first found this type of paper, which has been central to the development of her compositions, at a Portuguese market in Providence while she was a student at Brown University.

Despont’s father is an architect and her mother studies the movement of energy in plants. Her own work often makes architectural references; this example might recall formal garden design. She is interested in “drawing that acts as a battery. . . . It has a charge, an ability to affect and act upon you. It opens up a space like a window.”

–Jan Howard, Houghton P. Metcalf Jr. Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs