Further Information

Louise Weaver

Moonlight Becomes You

Louise Weaver’s menagerie of crochet covered animals seem to have been unleashed from museum cabinets and let loose in a glittering disco culture. From an otter sporting a giant mirror-ball medallion to a lime-green racoon in a pair of movie star shades, the Melbourne-based artist transforms familiar animals into new and fanciful beasts.

Clothed in glittery skins of crochet, sequins and beading, the creatures in Moonlight Becomes You strut their stuff on a stage bathed in moonlight. Starting with high density foam moulds commonly used by taxidermists, Weaver grafts on a new skin, patiently crocheted, stitch by stitch. Posed before us and spot lit as though they were in a series of staged tableau or dioramas, we are reminded of natural history displays at the museum.

But stuffed animals have never looked so good, nor do they usually have as much personality as these characters. Far from showing the passive formality of a museum display, Weaver has said that she wants to create the sense of the animals ‘being up to no good’, being a bit naughty and subversive. These animals are dressed for a special occasion, and look a little bit frisky or possibly even dangerous. And if we think about animals in the wilderness we are always aware of the potential for threat, when the cover of darkness can be a time for the pursuit and capture of prey.

The title of the installation, Moonlight Becomes You, is taken from a song which was first made a hit by Bing Crosby in 1942 and later by Frank Sinatra. The sweet, old fashioned nature of the song evokes a feeling of nostalgia and even sentimentality. But, in contrast, the actual soundtrack to this work is a cacophony of noise—from the chatter of plover birds to the comedic ribbit, ribbit sounds of frogs, to the absurdity of the Harpo Marx tune Solitude. Perhaps the soundtrack suggests the way in which there is a heightened clarity of sound at night, which can amplify our imaginations, opening up possibilities and allowing for transformation. Night is a time when things are not always as they seem.

As well, the animals in Moonlight Becomes You are in camouflage, their new and opulent skins giving them different identities, just as a caterpillar might shed its old casings to emerge triumphantly as a butterfly. Both protected and suffocated by their new cotton skins, Weaver has described these hybrid animals as taking on ‘the most satisfactory attributes of many varied things in order to exist in new circumstances’, much as we humans ourselves have adapted to new and changing situations.

Born in 1966 in Mansfield, Victoria, Louise Weaver is currently based in Melbourne. She has exhibited widely in Australia, and her work has been included in group exhibitions in Canada, Denmark, Korea, and the UK.

Courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney. Individual works in Moonlight Becomes You are from the collections of Jane Kleimeyer and Anthony Stuart (Melbourne), Mark Young (Melbourne) and Amanda Love (Sydney). Moonlight Becomes You was first commissioned by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, as part of NEW03.