I am many things: artist, illustrator, photographer, designer, writer, observer, thinker, dreamer... but my parents named me Laura.
Originally born in Ohio, my childhood was spent scattered across many states and landscapes. After fourteen years spent with my family in Colorado - pursuing art through higher education, and as a member of Next Gallery - I have returned to the state of my birth where I continue to add new mediums to my artistic practice.
Art found me at an early age...
At first to document the world around me, and later as an escape from that same world. In the decades before being diagnosed with ADHD, I felt an innate need to find the language to protect myself from being misunderstood (or worse); where words fell short, visual media offered a more direct line to the unconscious. It provided a safe outlet to
explore my emotions and experiences - profound or banal - without needing to define them.
Inspiration can come from anywhere for me - folk tales, films, nature, architecture, animation, language, music, and my own memories and daydreams are all influential. Thematically, subjects like identity, exclusion, gender, mental health, stereotypes, and the duality of dark and light are weaved into my work through narrative and allegory. My overactive mind creates visual homonyms, linking disparate subjects in sometimes surprising ways.
This same overactive nature also leads to my interest in working with many different media types; I don't know that I could ever choose just one single form of self-expression. We all contain hidden worlds within ourselves that become unlocked with various combinations of materials, inspirations, and emotions. What I seek at the end of a pencil, I may not find through the stroke of a brush or from behind a lens. Just as my interests exist in multitudes, so does my style.
