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Mahalene Louis
HeARTiste, Lecturer, Feng Shui Consultant, Poet, Teacher
Mahalene Louis spent most of her early life and was educated in Lyon, (ancient Lugdunum, founded by the Romans about 27 BC as the capital of Gaule, and famous through the centuries for production of the finest European silk). She received degrees from Université Lyon II in Classical and Modern Literature. After graduation she wrote feature articles for Télé 7 jours, a weekly magazine, and soon produced her own regular column on contemporary arts and crafts. She also taught French and Comparative Literature at Lyon's Lycée Édouard Herriot.
In 1980 she emigrated to the US, and upon her arrival realized that her level of proficiency in the English language was less than that needed for journalism or teaching. Inspired by the energy she found in America and by the tradition of her home region, as well as by the need to find a new vocation, she began to paint on silk. She rapidly began to receive recognition...collectors, art critics, purchasers. One astute collector immediately noted Mahalene's inspiration in part by the ecstatic works of Henri Matisse.
In the spring of 1985, the Paige Gallery in Dallas mounted a one-woman show,
"Magical Garden," composed of fifteen paintings created around flower myths. In the wake of this success, she found the courage and dedication to paint increasingly unmediated expressions of her inner experience as she explored academic and original sources of literature, myth, and other means for development of soul. Work followed work:
1985: Scriptures and Spirits, seven tapestries, D-Art Gallery, Dallas.
1986: Noah's Art. 7 tapestries and 7 paintings, took place in the JCC of Dallas.
1986: Timing is the essence of life, presented prints, paintings, and scuptures.
D-Art Gallery. Dallas.
1987: Numbers and Letters; 19 paintings, 3 sculptures. Temple Emanu-El. Dallas
1988: Holy Moons: a serial of six tapestries commissioned by Congregation Tiferet Israel. Dallas.
Bringing forth her largest installation to date, Hotel Paradise (documentary video available), June 1990, Trammel Crow Center. An installation of 56 pieces of art involving different media to create a sensory experience of wonder, a maze of seven rooms or seven steps in the archetypal heroic inner adventure.
She has recently relocated to a studio in Austin, and continues painting and writing , including a book on art and mysticism currently submitted for publication: ABRA QKabbalah. In Austin, she curated an art show as part of the NDIC conference, "When Boredom Becomes exciting," including works of inmates and artists expressing liberation. She also has given numerous talks on the connection of organization and creativity. It is another manner where her esprit nouveau transcends time and space.
Approaching art in a different mode from many tormented and self-destructive artists in the last centuries' Romantic tradition, Mahalene is committed to the investigation of the place of fine art in a balanced, productive, radiant life. Art is her means of expression, of creating value in this already beautiful world, challenging herself to greater transparency and subtlety of technique and medium, and sharing the truths she cherishes and by which she is nourished.
Her most recent, well-received lectures were at the Whole Life Expo in Austin, on the subject of "Organizing for Sacred Space," and in Dallas, in conjunction with the symposium "Rights of Passage: Healing Though Chaos Into the Millennium..." She was also invited as the guest of a TV show in El Paso, TX, "The Emerging Renaissance," which is available for cable access TV in all cities of the US. She recently completed an art installation, Belief/Be Leaf!, an invitation to explore mind and nature. The installation, partly funded by the City and State, involved the participation of the public at large, and will be offered again to the Austinite community in the spring of 2001.
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