Lou Haney
Lou Haney creates paintings of domestic spaces that employ nostalgia as a means of temporary escape from the corrupt and chaotic realities of present-day life. Using oil, acrylic, fiber art, and mixed media, she explores themes of memory, yearning, and femininity to evoke tension between fantasy and reality.
Born in Decatur, Alabama, Haney received her BA from Rhodes College in Memphis and her MFA in Painting from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA. Haney has attended MacDowell as well as the Vermont Studio Center. In 2022, she was a resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA. Haney was the recipient of the Mississippi Art Commission Individual Artist Fellowship in 2008. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows in California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky and in over 70 juried group exhibitions. Haney’s work was shown at the Spring/Break Art Fair in New York City in 2022, 2023, and 2025. In 2024, Haney had solo shows at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA, and Spectrum Fine Arts in Seattle, WA. Most recently, Lou’s work was featured in a solo exhibition at IA&A Hillyer in Washington, DC.
Haney currently teaches Studio Art and Art History at Piedmont Virginia Community College, Sweet Briar College, and Buford Middle School. The artist lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Artist Statement
I create paintings of domestic spaces that use nostalgia as a means of temporary escape from the chaotic and often corrupt realities of modern life. Through water-based paint, fiber art, and mixed media, I explore themes of memory, yearning, and femininity, evoking a tension between fantasy and reality.
Inspired by the Pattern & Decoration Movement, my work incorporates floral imagery, pattern, and ornamentation, dismantling the hierarchy between fine art and craft. Layers of floral motifs and decorated surfaces mirror the interiors of my past, transporting the viewer into imagined spaces where charm and excess coexist. Floral patterns, potted plants, and scenic wallpapers gesture toward nature yet remain ornamental—curated versions of the organic world, frozen in time. By blurring the line between art and design, I invite the viewer to reconsider the relationship between the domestic and the decorative, elevating the everyday into something both personal and universal.
Though I was born in the 1970s, childhood visits to my grandparents' home in rural West Tennessee felt like stepping into a 1960s time capsule. I would flip through old magazines my grandmother had kept, immersing myself in a world that was both distant and familiar. Those magazines, particularly Better Homes and Gardens, became a window to a time I never fully experienced, but through which I could retreat—much like I do today when browsing used bookstores or stumbling upon vintage magazines. That sense of nostalgia has never faded; it remains a constant thread in my work.
Influenced by Matisse and the bold aesthetic of Pop Art, my paintings play with flatness, drawing the viewer into the picture. Through skewed perspectives, exaggerated scale, and heightened saturation, I transform the domestic into something surreal—where beauty teeters on excess, and familiarity tilts into the uncanny. Quiet, off-kilter scenes—bright sunsets, flower fields, or tidy bedrooms—feel strangely empty, yet hauntingly familiar. Traces of human presence linger in the subtlest details: a window left ajar, a half-finished drink, or the ghost of a cigarette resting in an ashtray.
www.louhaney.com
