Lou Hubbard’s video and sculpture practice focuses on training and submission, and the aesthetics of sentimentality. Hubbard often subjects objects to various modes of duress through which they must yield to her rules. Basic materials of domestic and institutional utility (and very often personal objects) are tried and tested, then shaped into formal relationships, and emotional resonances are drawn out through careful selection and placement of these found and readily-at-hand objects.
Sometimes Hubbard captures her operations on film; sometimes the actions become sculptural assemblages that are fitted and measured and precariously balanced. She uses a combination of both rudimentary and refined approaches in her practice, and refuses any tendency toward embellishment or inscrutable artifice. The ultimate effect of her works might be perversely humorous or strangely sentimental.
