Laurel Garcia Colvin

category: Visual,

Contact & Info


Artist Statement

In the practice of my art I explore what it is to be a human in this world, both individually and collectively.  I am interested in how the human psyche perceives and constructs reality, subjective experiences, illusion and disillusion.  I render narrative figurative images, often in a fragmented way, to evoke emotional, psychological, or spiritual states and suggest human vulnerability when facing the discrepancy between desires and reality.

In my recent series of mixed media drawings I use the French 18th century designs of Toile de Jouy as the starting point.  I juxtapose the background printed fabric narrative of a pastoral past populated by idyllic figures with a foreground of contemporary situations.  Homelessness, gun violence, and other current social or political  controversies are in direct contrast to the nostalgic, sanitized, leisurely decorum of these historical toile patterns.  The overlay of detailed renderings of figures inhabiting this fragmented world creates visual commentaries on the contradictions, changes and complexities of contemporary life.  With undertones of foreboding, wanting and dismay, these works delve into the reality and fantasy, and provide a visual space to reflect on and reconsider the relationship of what remains, what is scrapped and what is made new in society's collective consciousness.

My work has been exhibited in several New York City galleries and galleries in Spain, Ireland, Illinois, Texas, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. My works are in private collections in England, Ireland, Brazil, New York, California, Connecticut, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois and Texas, including the collections of Jacqueline Adler Walker and Arthur W. Walker, Doreen and Gilbert Bassin, Deborah and Alan Simon, Judith and Stanley Zabar, Helen Stambler Neuberger and Jim Neuberger, Livia and Marc Straus, Sara M. Vance and Michelle Waddell, and Lawrence B. Benenson, and in the corporate collections of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Purchase, New York, and Logos Consulting Group, New York City.

I am represented by Elisa Contemporary Art in Riverdale, New York.  My studio is located in Chappaqua, New York.


Educational Background

Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, post-graduate work

University of Texas at Austin, M.F.A. with Highest Honors, 1984

University of Texas at Austin, B.F.A. with Highest Honors, 1978