Sculptor Louise Purvis lives in the bush-clad Kauaeranga Valley, near Thames. She completed her Diploma in Design at Waiariki Polytechnic in 1990 and was awarded Arts Council grants in 1990 and 1992. In 1994 Louise won a Commonwealth Fellowship in Arts and worked and studied in Europe. She has won a number of awards including the McConnell Family Supreme Award (2014), Sculpture in the Gardens, Auckland Botanic Gardens in 2014 and 2017.

Known for her large-scale steel and mixed-media sculptures, often informed by architectural sources, Masterworks is delighted to hold a selection of Louise’s domestic-scale sculptural works in bronze, including wall-mounted houses, single feathers and works from her Plant & Paperbag series.

During the Covid pandemic Louise relied on the click-and-collect service offered by her closest supermarket in Thames. The accumulation of brown paper bags that resulted made her think about things that get discarded and overlooked. In this regard, the crumpled paper bags joined company with the proliferation of native plants surrounding her, and the Plant & Paperbag series was the result. Created in small editions, the paper bags are cast in bronze using the lost-wax method. They are filled with an assortment of cast and handcrafted bronze replicas of native plants including harakeke, raupō, and muehlenbeckia. Placed in our homes, Louise’s Plant & Paperbag sculptures encourage us to notice the rich diversity and beauty of the plant-life all around us.