Biography

Louise Todd is an artist and academic researcher based in Edinburgh (Scotland). Her artwork reflects how we gaze upon, experience, and perform tourism. Louise is particularly interested in narratives of visual culture in tourism, and the tourist gaze. She works primarily in painting and drawing, with oil paint, pigment, and mediums, alongside charcoal and graphite.

Louise studied a BA (Hons) Fine Art: Sculpture, then an MPhil Art and Design in Organisational Contexts at Glasgow School of Art in the 1990s. Following this, she then worked in the arts, culture, media, and higher education sectors. Louise undertook a PhD in tourism and festival studies, using semiotics and visual methods, at Edinburgh Napier University (2007-2010). She continues to work there as an Associate Professor, as well as being a lead on public engagement and visual methods and ethnography in interdisciplinary research.

Louise’s art and research are complementary practices. Having returned to the study of art, and specifically painting, in recent years, Louise has exhibited in group exhibitions, and her work has been purchased by private collectors and a local gallery. She is a member of Visual Art Scotland (VAS), the Society of Scottish Artists (SSA), and Paradigms, a collective of women artists based in Edinburgh. Louise has also presented her artwork at academic research seminars and conferences, in line with her academic role.

Artist Statement

I am a visual artist and researcher. My art practice and research interests are complementary and inform one another. In my artwork I work primarily with drawing and painting. I approach my practice through observational research and existing and imagined contexts. I then use my research to develop paintings through gradual layers of transparent oil paint and mediums. I am particularly interested in narratives of visual culture in tourism, and the tourist gaze thesis. In my artwork, I observe people and places through both historical and contemporary lenses of tourism: as a phenomenon, and as a set of visual practices including tourism photography and sightseeing. My artwork intersects how we gaze as tourists: with curiosity, and through a series of reflexive discourses; and the artist’s gaze, as a reflexive researcher and viewer. Through presenting a reflected artist’s gaze upon tourists, my artwork aims to capture how we experience and perform tourism when we engage with other tourists, alongside touristic spaces, and places.