Louisa Bufardeci / Australia

Australia born 1969, worked in United States 2004–06

Louisa Bufardeci uses craft techniques to transform statistics and data into captivating works of art. The sea between A and I, 2014–15, is a suite of eight needlepoints based on Google Earth images of the waters between Australia and Indonesia where asylum seekers voyage between the two countries. Individual titles of the works reflect GPS coordinates of locations where boats carrying refugees have sunk attempting to reach Australia’s shores. Bufardeci scans imagery of the water at these coordinates for shapes that bear a resemblance to figures or that relate to the body, and adapts them to needlepoint. This process of abstraction mirrors the increasingly confusing reporting of events in the region.

BIO

Bufardeci has exhibited widely since 1991 including in Australia, Italy, Romania, United States, India, Taiwan and Japan. She has undertaken residencies in India and Bangladesh and was a Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, studio artist in residence from 1999 to 2002.