0:00:19 > 0:00:23In order to liberate myself from the past, I have to reconstruct it,
0:00:23 > 0:00:27ponder about it, make a statue out of it,
0:00:27 > 0:00:31and get rid of it through making sculpture.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35And I am able to forget it afterwards.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39I have paid my debt to the past, and I am liberated.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23It was like Louise was holding hands with me.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26When I think about the artists that Louise would have known,
0:01:26 > 0:01:29these great historical figures, Louise knew these people,
0:01:29 > 0:01:30knew these artists.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36I don't have much humility.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39I'm not going to pretend I do, but in that situation, I really did.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44I felt like I was holding the baton of time, in history,
0:01:44 > 0:01:48and that Louise was, like, helping me through to next stage of my life.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04Louise could have done anything.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07Louise could have been a doctor, a scientist...
0:02:07 > 0:02:09probably if she was a bit younger, an astronaut.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11But she chose to do art.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16She could master her materials so well, whether it was a tiny piece
0:02:16 > 0:02:19of work on fabric, a small delicate print,
0:02:19 > 0:02:22or these giant monumental sculptures -
0:02:22 > 0:02:24some of her bronzes are like colossal.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27There was no doubt that a woman made that work
0:02:27 > 0:02:28and I think that's very inspiring.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32And I think Louise is probably one of the greatest artists
0:02:32 > 0:02:34in the last, like, two centuries.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11When I look at Louise's work, or when I talk about Louise's work,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14I don't talk from a point of view of someone that's well-read
0:03:14 > 0:03:17or I'm learned on the subject of Louise Bourgeois.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20For me, I just have a natural response to the work
0:03:20 > 0:03:22and it's what I feel like when I look at it.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30This is the first piece of work of Louise Bourgeois'
0:03:30 > 0:03:32that I want to talk about.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35A lot of people probably expect me to talk about the sewn works,
0:03:35 > 0:03:38or the figurative works, but this one in this exhibition
0:03:38 > 0:03:41in Edinburgh is the one that really interests me.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45It's called 'Poids' which actually means in French 'weights'.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54The whole thing is counter-levered.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57Here, you have all the weights, which are really, really, really
0:03:57 > 0:04:02heavy, and this is what retains the balance for the whole piece of work.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04And here we have this sort of like spiky,
0:04:04 > 0:04:09fragile, kind of chandelier shape going up to the glass balls.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12And of course this is very much like a kind of female figure with the
0:04:12 > 0:04:17breasts and almost like a womb-like shape with the kind of eggs,
0:04:17 > 0:04:22hanging on to it. But the main is, within this work, you would think
0:04:22 > 0:04:26it's...like the weights are actually protecting all of this fragility.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29And it's this balance thing of Louise Borgeois' work
0:04:29 > 0:04:33that really interests me. Everything she did was about balance.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37What really I think...you know these little things you have on buildings
0:04:37 > 0:04:40to stop birds from landing? That's what this reminds me of.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43It's almost like something which could be quite harmful
0:04:43 > 0:04:45but yet protective of something.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50The eye at the top, as well, looking out.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53No matter how simple it is, to me I see a whole, strong,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56figurative element that is about balance
0:04:56 > 0:04:59and about sustaining something.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02And I've heard that if you remove just one these weights,
0:05:02 > 0:05:06the whole thing could just fall and crash, which would be horrific.
0:05:06 > 0:05:08But that's what Louise was like,
0:05:08 > 0:05:12that's what her work was about, about sustaining a kind of fragile
0:05:12 > 0:05:15moment, whether it was emotional, or whether it was intellectual.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17And for me, in this whole exhibition,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20this is the piece of work that I would very much like to have.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29You have talked about the making of the work...
0:05:29 > 0:05:33Louise, throughout the last 30 years of her life, she would have
0:05:33 > 0:05:35these soirees, these tea parties,
0:05:35 > 0:05:38and my gallery in New York had promised me a treat.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41And I said what I'd really like is to meet Louise Bourgeois.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43It's an analogy.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46I asked you an explanation and you give me an analogy.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50I went into the back parlour where Louise was sitting,
0:05:50 > 0:05:52and the first thing that I thought about Louise was that she had
0:05:52 > 0:05:56the most ginormous breasts and her hands were on the table,
0:05:56 > 0:05:57and she had these really strong hands.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01They were almost like an eagle's talons or something.
0:06:01 > 0:06:02And I grabbed...
0:06:02 > 0:06:05And she looked incredibly formidable and really strong.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08And of course, I'd seen photos of her, but seeing her in real
0:06:08 > 0:06:14life was really...almost like seeing an entity, not a human being.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16I want my work to speak for itself.
0:06:16 > 0:06:22And what is it you want it to express? We have to know.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24Tell Louise exactly what you wanted.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26It's about the torment of being an artist.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28The torment? Yes.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31But it's absurd! It's not a torment to be an artist.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35Yes, it is. The premise is idiotic.
0:06:35 > 0:06:40It is not a torment to be an artist, it is a privilege!
0:06:52 > 0:06:54These works, 'Triptych For The Red Room',
0:06:54 > 0:06:57I hadn't actually seen before until the other day.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00I might have seen them in the book but I'd never seen them for real.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03When I first looked at them, they kind of looked sexual
0:07:03 > 0:07:07but I knew they weren't sexual. I knew it was more like a kind of...
0:07:07 > 0:07:11not a repulsion but a kind of like joining of something.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14As you walked down them, I actually don't really know which order they
0:07:14 > 0:07:18go in, but as I walk down them, this figure,
0:07:18 > 0:07:19they're kind of entwined
0:07:19 > 0:07:22and it kind of looks semi-sexual but it's not.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25What we're actually seeing is some kind of hysterical fear
0:07:25 > 0:07:27on the female figure's form.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31And here, we have Louise's arch of hysteria.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35And this also looks like a very surrealist, kind of dream-like
0:07:35 > 0:07:38erm, unreal situation too.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41These figures are kind of suspended away from each other
0:07:41 > 0:07:44and she's suspended within time,
0:07:44 > 0:07:45and they're not together.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48And in this one, which is really interesting,
0:07:48 > 0:07:50this is definitely a boy.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52This is not a man, this is a boy.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56And now you can really understand that it's the form of the mother.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59And so with this, it's kind of like tricky subject matter
0:07:59 > 0:08:00that she's dealing with.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04She's actually responding to how it feels to be a mother,
0:08:04 > 0:08:06and maybe the repulsion of the child,
0:08:06 > 0:08:08and wanting to distance herself from the child.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11But yet you've got this thing where she's completely joined
0:08:11 > 0:08:13as well, and so close and bound up.
0:08:15 > 0:08:20It's Louise dealing with, like, a kind of emotional, er...
0:08:20 > 0:08:22psychotic reaction to something
0:08:22 > 0:08:24and trying to deal with it within her work.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39'Spider' for me was something romantic.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43I could imagine people saying "meet me underneath the spider",
0:08:43 > 0:08:44like you'd go on this fantastic date
0:08:44 > 0:08:47and then you get that idea of the spider
0:08:47 > 0:08:49devouring you or getting caught up in its web.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57I mean it is a mother and it's got the egg, it's got a marble egg
0:08:57 > 0:09:01in there, but this one's really like a mechanical spider.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05Like something out of some Mad Max kind of film or something.
0:09:05 > 0:09:06It's quite scary.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27So this was like the really beautiful book that was made
0:09:27 > 0:09:30about the collaboration, 'Do Not Abandon Me'.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33Many different images, but the main thing is that the subject matter
0:09:33 > 0:09:35is male and female images.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37And even though these look kind of sexual,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41it's actually about this tiny female figure, actually paying homage
0:09:41 > 0:09:45to this giant male figure. Almost like a God.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51I did the drawing over the top, Louise did the watercolours.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56'I Lost You' - this is about losing children, losing life.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00You know, whether or not it's abortion, miscarriages.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03You know, my grandmother told me this thing - she said,
0:10:03 > 0:10:06"People in your life expect...you kind of expect maybe your husband
0:10:06 > 0:10:08"to die, or your parents to die
0:10:08 > 0:10:11"but you never expect to bury your children."
0:10:11 > 0:10:13And Louise had to bury her son.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16So I also think with Louise's subject of abandonment,
0:10:16 > 0:10:19there was also not just about her mother abandoning her,
0:10:19 > 0:10:22but also her son leaving her to another world.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28The interesting thing about the collaboration is that
0:10:28 > 0:10:30I could do whatever I liked.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34But I thought the images of Louise's were so beautiful
0:10:34 > 0:10:37and so perfect, I felt like I didn't need to do anything to them.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40That's why it took me two years of deciding what to do.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43And the day that I did welcome them, I did them all in the one day
0:10:43 > 0:10:46and every single one worked out perfect, as far as I was concerned.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49But I had to be in this kind of Zen-like state.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52This one is really interesting.
0:10:52 > 0:10:57Most people, when they see this one, they can't tell what is me
0:10:57 > 0:11:00or what is Louise. And usually people think Louise did the writing
0:11:00 > 0:11:03and I drew the figure, but actually it's the other way round.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05And that's really what I wanted as well.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07I didn't want it to be, erm,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10I didn't want anyone to be able to tell what was mine
0:11:10 > 0:11:11and what was Louise's.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14I wanted the collaboration to look like one person, one work.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18But the simplicity of it just works brilliantly.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21And when you think about the age gap and the difference Louise and
0:11:21 > 0:11:26myself, it really is incredible that it works so easily and so gently.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07She turned me into a wild beast, right?
0:12:07 > 0:12:10I don't say that I am a wild beast all the time,
0:12:10 > 0:12:13but I am a wild beast some of the time.
0:12:53 > 0:12:58The frustration, instead of turning into a running away muscular thing,
0:12:58 > 0:13:03the frustration was a kind of stiffening like this,
0:13:03 > 0:13:06and keeping the resentment inside.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08And 25 years later,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12I have not come to terms with my resentment which is there...
0:13:12 > 0:13:14which is there forever.
0:13:14 > 0:13:15Like...
0:13:19 > 0:13:20That's it.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26Now if you do not let me have the last word once in a while,
0:13:26 > 0:13:27then everything goes.
0:13:39 > 0:13:40All these drawings are me.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56Jerry, you worked with Louise for 30 years from 1980 until she died,
0:13:56 > 0:14:00almost every day. You probably knew her better than anybody.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03You know, for me, she still remained a mystery until the very end.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07I was fascinated with her from my first encounter with her and...
0:14:07 > 0:14:10just trying to figure out what makes this woman tick.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13And from the very first, I was totally captured by her.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16I liked the way she looked, I liked the way she styled herself, I liked
0:14:16 > 0:14:19the way that, when she invited me to the house, everything about her.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26So this work's called 'Give And Take' and it's actually your hands.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29Yeah. A cast of your hands but it's also like the other work,
0:14:29 > 0:14:32it actually is about...it's like a seesaw, it's like a balance.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35All her work has almost this duality,
0:14:35 > 0:14:36of two things co-existing together.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40I mean it sounds like a cliche, this idea really of two things
0:14:40 > 0:14:42co-existing, and it's sort of a balance, how these two
0:14:42 > 0:14:45things co-exist, and it can tip one way or the other.
0:14:45 > 0:14:47Do you think, for Louise,
0:14:47 > 0:14:49that it was important that it was your hands?
0:14:49 > 0:14:52Pretty much everything of Louise is not general.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55It's not the body, it's her body, or the body of someone else.
0:14:55 > 0:14:57So she used me in a lot of pieces.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02'10am', which is about our relationship, erm,
0:15:02 > 0:15:04there's a specificity to it.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06To the...at least the initial
0:15:06 > 0:15:09beginning of a work has to be addressed, really,
0:15:09 > 0:15:11to the way she feels. And usually the way she feels
0:15:11 > 0:15:14really has to do with the interaction to somebody else.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Louise was one of these people, when she was anxious, she would attack.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22At certain times, I'd just arrive at the house
0:15:22 > 0:15:24and I could just look her and I know - uh-oh!
0:15:24 > 0:15:28This is, you know, a storm brewing, this is going to be a rough day.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31But there's fantastic clips of film I've seen of her smashing
0:15:31 > 0:15:33plaster casts, smashing things on the floor.
0:15:33 > 0:15:34Dishes, everything. Yeah, everything.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36She'd start screaming, jumping up and down,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39on the floor, just like a tantrum, like a little kid.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41I mean, quite juvenile in a way.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43I mean, the emotions were so intense and her fear was so intense,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46I don't think people realised she was so sensitive
0:15:46 > 0:15:48that everything was magnified way beyond proportion.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50Which makes sense with her work,
0:15:50 > 0:15:54because her work is so emotionally magnified as well.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56It's emotional but yet highly intellectual,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00and it kind of gets into the nooks and crannies of the mind, you know.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04This is a very simple piece of work to look at,
0:16:04 > 0:16:09but what it actually stands for and what it signifies is highly complex.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13I think it's really beautiful,
0:16:13 > 0:16:17and I think Louise made this because she loved you, very much.
0:16:38 > 0:16:39Louise was an insomniac.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41She would wake up
0:16:41 > 0:16:45and she would make these drawings in the middle of the night.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48She was always looking into other worlds. The twilight zone.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59And you were really good friends with her, not just a curator,
0:16:59 > 0:17:01you didn't just work with her on massive shows,
0:17:01 > 0:17:03you were good friends with her.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07How do you relate the insomnia drawings to the real Louise, or do
0:17:07 > 0:17:11you think that was another kind of Louise, like a ghostly Louise?
0:17:11 > 0:17:13What was really interesting is that she was very confrontational.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15I mean, I was terrified of her.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17She would absolutely put me on the spot
0:17:17 > 0:17:19and made me feel about an inch high.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21And then when I discovered these drawings, they, in a way,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23revealed a different kind of Bourgeois.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27The Bourgeois that emerged at night, when people had gone.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29And they seem to me to kind of exist in...
0:17:29 > 0:17:33I think I once called it the slipstream between past and present,
0:17:33 > 0:17:35between reality and imagination.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48She has a memory of the orange trees in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris,
0:17:48 > 0:17:52and somewhere talks to... Worrying about whether they'd survive
0:17:52 > 0:17:56the cold winter, because, of course, they have oranges on them.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59And you know, so I think that's a reference to that, again.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03So memories, really old, you know, memories of a long time ago,
0:18:03 > 0:18:05coming back to haunt her at that period.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16What is really, really
0:18:16 > 0:18:21so overwhelming is the genuine innocence of them.
0:18:21 > 0:18:22They weren't done to be seen.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25You can really see that when you look at them all,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28and it really is like going into her mind. Yes.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36I first got to know Bourgeois' work as an artist from the 1950s,
0:18:36 > 0:18:39then to rediscover her as a contemporary artist in the '80s
0:18:39 > 0:18:42and '90s, still making incredibly young work was extraordinary.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46When I came across Louise's work, I thought she was the same age as me.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49Yeah, exactly! "Oh, who's this young American artist who makes work that
0:18:49 > 0:18:52"I really relate to?" Because, when I first started,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55nobody was making working about emotion or about these
0:18:55 > 0:18:58so-called embarrassing subjects that you shouldn't be talking about.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01And if you were a woman and you kept making constant references,
0:19:01 > 0:19:04people say, "Oh, get over it, will you?"
0:19:07 > 0:19:10But of course, in life, how you get over things is to readdress them,
0:19:10 > 0:19:14revaluate them, and that's constantly what Louise did.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17It was her own psychoanalysis through her work.
0:19:21 > 0:19:25"I have failed as a wife, as a woman, as a mother, as a hostess, as
0:19:25 > 0:19:31"an artist, as a businesswoman, as a friend, as a daughter, as a sister.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34"I have not failed as a truth seeker."
0:19:34 > 0:19:38And I love that, you know, and it's so Bourgeois.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41She kind of failed at everything, but at the really important thing,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43which is about integrity, sincerity, truth...
0:19:43 > 0:19:46And this is being blatantly honest with yourself.
0:19:46 > 0:19:50It's cruel almost, to think that you've failed at so many things.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52I think Bourgeois slipped in and out of depression.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56And there's an addendum to this - it says "lowest ebb". Oh, no.
0:19:56 > 0:19:58She was writing from bleak, black despair.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00She lived with an exclusively male household.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02She was struggling as an artist.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05It was a very male environment in New York in the 1950s.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08She hadn't been in America that long.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Erm, she was a French woman, English was her second language.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13She was struggling on all fronts.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30"I am afraid of silence. I am afraid of the dark.
0:20:30 > 0:20:31"I am afraid to fall down.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33"I am afraid of insomnia.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35"I am afraid of emptiness.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37"Is something missing?
0:20:37 > 0:20:40"Yes, something is missing and always will be missing.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43"The experience of emptiness.
0:20:43 > 0:20:44"To miss.
0:20:44 > 0:20:45"What are you missing?
0:20:45 > 0:20:46"Nothing.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50"I am imperfect but I am lacking nothing.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53"Maybe something is missing but I do not know,
0:20:53 > 0:20:55"and therefore I do not suffer.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00"Empty stomach, empty house, empty bottle.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04"The falling into a vacuum signals the abandonment of the mother."
0:21:09 > 0:21:14Louise, when she was 21, her mother died and lot of her work was
0:21:14 > 0:21:17based about her mother and father's relationship.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21Even right to the end of her life, she always continuously
0:21:21 > 0:21:24reworking these subjects in a very cathartic way.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28And I find this a very honest statement, about how you feel
0:21:28 > 0:21:32when you feel totally isolated and totally alone.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34And what's really amazing and lovely in this,
0:21:34 > 0:21:37is Louise is having a conversation with herself.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40That's how alone she felt at that time when she wrote this.
0:21:40 > 0:21:45And it's so pure and so simple, it's almost looks like an epitaph,
0:21:45 > 0:21:46it looks like a eulogy, epitaph...
0:21:46 > 0:21:49Something you could almost have on a gravestone,
0:21:49 > 0:21:52it's that pure, and that simple and that beautiful.
0:21:54 > 0:21:55There's two people here.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59There's a very strong person that can deal with the emptiness
0:21:59 > 0:22:02and then there's this other person that's questioning it.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05And with that, Louise makes a balance with the work again,
0:22:05 > 0:22:07and that's why I respond to it so much.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09There's nothing schizophrenic about it.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13What it is is someone being really, really, brutally honest with themselves,
0:22:13 > 0:22:15in a way most people wouldn't want to be.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23I indicate my space...
0:22:23 > 0:22:28and I put inside my fears.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31What is in this space is under my control.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08This work's called Janus Fleuri, but I'm not very good on titles.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10I've always called this work "That Thing,"
0:23:10 > 0:23:13that kind of...you know, it's kind of like an organ,
0:23:13 > 0:23:17like something sexual, something physical.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20But I could never work out if it was male or female, and for me,
0:23:20 > 0:23:24it was like a kind of womb-like shape that had kind of exploded.
0:23:24 > 0:23:29It was also very phallic, like a penis is, it was also breast-like.
0:23:29 > 0:23:31There was all these things that I saw in it
0:23:31 > 0:23:34and the title comes from a Roman god
0:23:34 > 0:23:36and a god with two faces.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39This again is about the two things going on, the duality,
0:23:39 > 0:23:42and it's a duality of male and female,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45and you see so many things in this.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49But for me, it's about fecundity on a really big level,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52it's about this kind of sexual energy of this organ.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54It's very tactile, you want to kind of touch it,
0:23:54 > 0:23:57and you want to sort of find out more about it and you think...
0:23:57 > 0:24:00The most interesting thing about this work
0:24:00 > 0:24:02is you think you've seen something like this work before.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04You think you might know what it is
0:24:04 > 0:24:06but you don't, you really don't know.
0:24:06 > 0:24:08This is an organ
0:24:08 > 0:24:11invented by Louise's imagination and by Louise's hands.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55This is a large series of works,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58and they're actually prints, etchings.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01And then Louise has painted over the top.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05And what's really amazing about this is the size and the energy involved.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09And Louise was right at the end of her life when she created these,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12and the words are really, really incredibly profound and beautiful.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16"I am packing my bags." "I leave the nest."
0:25:21 > 0:25:25"Something atrocious must have happened that I don't understand."
0:25:27 > 0:25:30How many times in our lives has really terrible things
0:25:30 > 0:25:31happened that we didn't understand?
0:25:31 > 0:25:35How many times in our life, we felt something's happening
0:25:35 > 0:25:37behind the scenes and we just feel awful?
0:25:37 > 0:25:40You know, this is what she's dealing with and also all the shapes,
0:25:40 > 0:25:42there's nothing aggressive here.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47Everything... It's almost like looking into...maybe into her mind,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51into her blood, into her body, into her soul.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54There's only one purely figurative picture here, of one figure,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58but all the rest are like a breakdown of what we are.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01"When terror pounces, grips me, I create an image."
0:26:01 > 0:26:06So it's almost she responds to the fear, she's ready for the fear.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09And then she captures it, she makes something of it.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13"Struck by utter revulsion, I do nothing, paralysed,
0:26:13 > 0:26:15"immobilised by the horror."
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Yet again, it's about being struck by fear
0:26:19 > 0:26:24and not being able to do anything, yet Louise is analysing that fear
0:26:24 > 0:26:26by actually making work about it.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30This is a really strange image, the whole image is very peculiar.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32You have like these intestines, this innards
0:26:32 > 0:26:34and it's kind of like the body.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36But also you've got this strange face with four eyes,
0:26:36 > 0:26:39that actually does look quite afraid.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42And just walking around this room, you can actually feel the emotion
0:26:42 > 0:26:46but it's very beautiful at the same time. It's about fear and beauty.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58"I leave my home."
0:26:58 > 0:27:01All of these things are about someone who's preparing
0:27:01 > 0:27:04themselves for a journey, and not an angry journey,
0:27:04 > 0:27:06a journey that she's come to terms with.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14Where do you go? Where would anyone go?
0:27:14 > 0:27:16Where would someone go at the age of 97?
0:27:16 > 0:27:19I think there's only probably one place to go.
0:27:26 > 0:27:30Louise did say to me, "Do you have plenty of time?"
0:27:30 > 0:27:32But I think it's about how I use it
0:27:32 > 0:27:36and how dedicated I am towards that time and seriously I take it.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38We've only got one life, we've only got one thing.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41I'm lucky enough to have found my vocation, that it's art
0:27:41 > 0:27:45and I really shouldn't abuse that in any way, whatsoever.
0:27:46 > 0:27:50It's like the world of Louise has kind of opened up to me as well,
0:27:50 > 0:27:54and for me to facilitate and use, which is incredibly generous
0:27:54 > 0:27:56but I think that's what Louise's intention was.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07Work was her main thing, her main focus, her main drive in life
0:28:07 > 0:28:10and that's why she was so successful at the end of her life
0:28:10 > 0:28:13because that was her ambition, that was her vocation.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16So I'm hoping that a bit of that is rubbing off onto me.
0:28:28 > 0:28:30Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd