About Laura Malone

Artist Statement

I paint in response to emptiness — not to fill it, but to break through its shell. Choosing themes of vulnerability, impermanence, and intimacy, I land at the intersection of beauty and sadness. The bodies are the object of a gaze that is tender, occasionally saucy, never distant. I explore the body as both subject and object, to elicit a felt sense of its interiority and to know its pleasure through the act of painting.

Beauty matters to me. Not the beauty attained through mere pleasure or happiness, but that which is revealed when examining the immanent and embodied tensions of death, sexuality, and grief. Often, I am attempting to reconcile ideas that are in some way alienated from each other: formed and formless, sweet and terrible, confident and shameful. These dichotomies present themselves to me as images and the act of painting is my way of resolving a paradox. By juxtaposing this simultaneity of opposing forces I hope to penetrate a deeper truth.

This truth is often expressed as the unencumbered chaos of human experience, which may be poignant and relatable, while at the same time evoking feelings that are uncomfortable, or even unwelcome. By using color in unexpected ways, I intend to induce a flickering between thought and feeling. This sense of inner movement freshens perception and brings joy. Forms that begin as one thing and then become another evoke a flow and flux that may resolve into a single, astonishing moment of being.

Laura exhibits throughout the US, and in online international exhibits. She lives and works in Oakland, California, in her studio under her husband’s wood shop, where they spend their days enjoying the sounds of each others’ industry and try to agree on what music they will work to.