Biography
Lauren Whearty is an artist, educator, writer and curator living and working in Philadelphia, PA. She received her MFA from The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH), and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) and has been a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run curatorial collective and non-profit in Brooklyn, NY since 2017.
She currently teaches at Tyler School of Art & Architecture in Philadelphia.
Artist Statement
My richly colored and gestural paintings of everyday places, like my garden, dining table, and studio investigate the underlying conditions of place, memory, interiority, and psychology.
The power and freedom to create, ignore, and reform is monumental and feminist. It is a world-building process, where marks indicating my perception generate a record. Every brushstroke stems from observation, yet my actions and reactions are inventive. This liberating process allows me to translate what I see into color, gesture, shape, and structure.
I paint what I notice, from bouquets to domestic interiors, gardens, and reflections in glass. I see many of these subjects as souvenirs of personal experience, memorials, and meditations on people, like my mother. Sentimentality is still seen as a taboo in contemporary art, yet these personal subjects can hold multitudes, and maintain the complexity of everyday experiences. I contrast sweetness and melancholy with assertive gestures, bold colors, and vibrating patterns to create rich spaces that capture poetic moments when flowers slump, light moves, and everything seems to change while I attempt to capture it.
Flattening space in my paintings works to flatten and extend time. It stretches the lives of botanical subjects and brief qualities of light. I layer real flowers with printed floral fabrics, making both feel alive. Planes and networks of patterns on textiles and natural textures like wood, plants, and stone are woven throughout compositions to fuse elements of illusion and abstraction, slowing down the process of observing the subjects.
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Please contact lwhearty@gmail.com about art and writing inquiries, and follow on instagram @laurenwhearty