Louise Walder is an Australian-based painter whose practice explores the beauty of the everyday through bold abstraction, expressive mark-making, and vivid colour. Working with a variety of materials on canvas, she transforms fleeting visual moments such as shadows, textures, and structural patterns, into layered, dynamic compositions. Drawing from photography and observational sketches, her process embraces messiness, contrast, and materiality to evoke the emotional residue of place without direct representation.

Louise investigates the tension between perception, inner and outer experience and the physical world, and how painting can give form to the intangible - memory, sensation, and emotion. Her work invites viewers into an intuitive, sensory encounter that is beyond language, provoking feeling and memory without relying on clear narrative or explanation.

Exhibitions

2025

2024

2023

2022

Swell Art Prize 2025, Finalist, Swell Sculpture Festival, Gold Coast QLD Australia

2025 Revival Emerging Artist Prize, Finalist, Revival Art & Design Gallery, Brisbane QLD Australia

ACB Selects, Group Exhibition, Michael Reid Northern Beaches, Sydney NSW Australia

Surface and Form, Duo Exhibition, Grey Street Gallery, Brisbane QLD Australia

Lethbridge 20 000 Small Scale Art Award, Salon Des Refusés, Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington QLD Australia

Fifty Squared Art Prize, Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy VIC Australia

Lethbridge Landscape Prize, Finalist, Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington QLD Australia

Abstraction, Group Exhibition, Petrie Terrace Gallery, Brisbane QLD Australia

Lethbridge 20 000 Small Scale Art Award, Salon Des Refusés, Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington QLD Australia

Fairholme Open Art Competition, Toowoomba QLD Australia

Emergence: An Artistic Exploration of Quantum Science, Group Exhibition, M2 Art Space, Sydney NSW Australia

Second Rising, Group Exhibition, Grey Street Gallery, Brisbane QLD Australia