Painting Exhibit Opening at Argenta Library, North Little Rock, AR

Thank you to all who came out Friday night for the exhibit opening! To learn more about these paintings and the sources of inspiration, search this blog using key words “Harbour Island.” You can also visit http://arttalkkabf.blogspot.com or click here to listen to artist, curator and radio host, Rachel Trusty, interview Laura about her work and about the current exhibit.

Disappearing Act, 2016, oil on canvas, 18×24″

Reminders, 2016, oil on prepared paper, 22×30″

Island Dreams, 2016, oil on wood panel, 24×32″

Entry Point, 2016, oil on wood panel, 21×24″

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Untitled Study 3, 2016, oil on Arches oil paper, 10 x 8″

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“The Visitor,” 2016, oil on Arches oil paper, 16 x 12″ (available at Princess Street Gallery)

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Seeking, 2015, gesso, acrylic and oil on paper, 20 x 16″

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Dimming Brightly, 2016, mixed media on paper, 14 x 22″ (available at Justus Fine Art)

“Briland Botanic,” 2016, mixed media on paper, 22 x 30″ (available at Princess Street Gallery)

“Remnant,” 2016, image transfer and acrylic on cardboard, 15 x 20″ (available at Princess Street Gallery)

“Regrowth”, 2016, acrylic on wood panel, 32 x 24″ (available at Justus Fine Art)

One Place, 2016, acrylic and collage on clayboard, 18×36″

The Shell, 2017, oil on wood panel, 8 1/2×17″

Transport, 2016, oil on canvas, 24×18″

Hidden, 2016, oil on canvas, 16×20″

Boy in Transit, 2015, oil on canvas, 12×14″

Center of the Universe, 2016, mixed media on paper, 18×18″

Remembering, 2016, oil on wood panel, 16 x 20

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Capturing Lost Moments and Memory through Painting

While I am compelled to paint, the two dimensional art form can feel limited at times. The ideas dominating my thoughts, the concepts I aim to convey, they may need smell, touch, or sound to complete the message. Can I instill with paint the feel of the cool air at dusk upon the skin? Can I lead a viewer to smell the musty ocean scent of saltwater and fish and damp ground? Can a painting evoke sound for the viewer? I wonder how limited or how powerful a visual prompt can be. In a world more saturated with visual imagery than ever before, I begin to realize a two dimensional image can penetrate the mind, can influence beliefs, can alter opinion and evoke specific emotion. The visual image can make us IMAGINE using our other senses. Ceaseless advertising in our lives proves the power of an image.

“Disappearing Act”, 2016, oil on canvas, 18 x 24″

Perhaps I can reach the minds of a few viewers and create art that connects directly with unique memories and experiences of others.  I strive the instill that feeling of nostalgia, of the past, of a closed unreachable history…the bittersweet yesterday that lives only in our memories. Can I accomplish such a poignant feeling of a lost moment in time? Well, in two new groups of paintings, I certainly try.

“Reminders”, 2016, oil on prepared paper, 22 x 30″

“Hidden”, 2016, oil on wood panel, 16 x 20″ (available at Justus Fine Art)

In one group the focus is on place – the type of place that fades over time, that succumbs to nature. Conversely, I also depict places that seem to never change…that stay fixed in both our memory and by some miracle, fixed in a landscape. These places beat the odds. While generations of people come and go, these places resist nature and resist slipping into the past. The second group I’m now working on are people who are part of a place and the place is part of the people. The two intertwine and co-exist, each influencing the other. The painting below exemplifies my effort to mesh a person with a place and a place with a person.

“Transcendence”, 2016, oil on canvas, 16 x 20″

Environments remain, sometimes altered by the presence of a person, but largely ambivalent to our short existence. We build things, create structures, make objects that we leave behind for the next person to find and use. Our time is short and noticing our surroundings is important, noticing the things we make and use is worthy, noticing our fleeting moments with each other is valuable. Stopping and noticing, even while it all passes so quickly, is a way to freeze time and be thankful. I suppose this is both why and what I paint.

“Connected”, 2016, oil on prepared paper, 22 x 30″

Remembering, 2016, oil on wood panel, 16 x 20

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Thank you for visiting! Please comment if you have any feedback or questions. Next up: Scoping out art trends in New York City!