In the last twenty years of her career, Louise Bourgeois increasingly used her own clothes and other textiles from various phases of her life. The result was room-sized installations, figurative sculptures or abstract collages that she thoughtfully assembled from bed linen, handkerchiefs, tapestries and needle points.
During her lifetime, the artist explained the role of the needle as symbolising the repair of damage. The magical power of the needle had always fascinated her. The fabric works, just like the majority of Bourgeois' entire oeuvre, refer to themes such as identity and sexuality, trauma and memory, guilt and reparation - often alluding to her own troubled biography.
This latest phase of the unusual and impressive artist Louise Bourgeois is skilfully summarised by the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre in London with Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child, in which it presents a selection of these textile works between 9 February and 15 May.
