|
I recently visited the inaugural exhibition at Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn and was delighted to see some of the best paintings I have seen in a long time. These large, abstract canvases are by Lauren Luloff, a young artist living in Williamsburg, NY. On first sight, Lauren’s work looks like an explosion in a paint factory and, on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the surfaces on which she paints are also pretty rough. Often these surfaces are pieces of painted bed sheets sewn together with bits of curtains or the frilly parts of some pieces of cloth or nylon. |
 |
Lauren Luloff – Rodney Dickson
I recently visited the inaugural exhibition at Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn and was delighted to see some of the best paintings I have seen in a long time. These large, abstract canvases are by Lauren Luloff, a young artist living in Williamsburg, NY.
On first sight, Lauren’s work looks like an explosion in a paint factory and, on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the surfaces on which she paints are also pretty rough. Often these surfaces are pieces of painted bed sheets sewn together with bits of curtains or the frilly parts of some pieces of cloth or nylon. This surface is crudely attached to the front of the wooden stretcher, which, in itself, looks like a carpenters’ bad day at work. Her creativity is not limited to the handling of paint and, in this city of art commerce where slick presentation and sophisticated marketing is such an important element of many young artists’ work, I became intrigued by this highly creative, rough and ready approach to making art.
A week later and I was standing at the door of Lauren’s studio, still not knowing what kind of person would emerge. Lauren opened the door, greeted us and showed us inside to see more of her work. She is a lightly built, attractive-looking young woman from Pennsylvania who moved to New York in 2002.
Her expansive and well-lit studio looks just like the exploded paint factory out of which those paintings might have come. Large canvases lean precariously in a home made up of painting racks, and pieces of colored canvas hang off of the wall and rest on the floor. I can easily imagine how enjoyable it must be for Lauren when she is engrossed in her orgy of paint.
However, a brief discussion with the artist soon revealed that she is not some wild woman wreaking vengeance on the world. Rather, she is soft-spoken and almost shy. In contrast to my image of her throwing handfuls of paint on canvas, she described how she makes her paintings in an almost subconscious contemplation—laboring over every mark, stitch, drip or cut. In her more recent work, she cuts holes in the surface to reveal another dimension to the work—the shadows cast onto the wall behind the canvas. Sometimes the paint is a thick impasto and sometimes it is a thin wash that allows the color of some printed curtain material to be included in her overall aesthetic. She seemed to be modest about her work and a little surprised that I would be interested in it. This is also an unusual find in a young artist, most of which have much larger egos than their work will ever live up to. However, in common with the likes of Valerie Bogdan, this modesty indicates a genuine hunger to make good art and a realization that the next work must always be better than the last, so that there is never time to be satisfied with recent successes.
Laurens’ work could be described as “pure painting” in so far as she is not limited by subject matter or any pre-conceived expectations for the outcome of the work—just experimentation from the beginning to the end and a high level of creativity that includes making her own painting surfaces and even cutting holes in them. I can imagine that, in some cases, the paintings fail, as must be the case with this high risk way of working. I can also imagine that if she cuts too many more holes in some of them, she will have nothing left. As she mentioned though, the personal rewards are high when the work does succeed. That magical moment when the mess begins to come together, when those formerly dead colors start to ignite and the painting comes alive, is the most exciting moment for an artist. It is perhaps the very reason to be an artist. I presume that this is why she paints and, from what I can see, she paints a lot. I look forward to seeing her work develop as she matures and am curious to see where the hole cutting leads her. Already, she is moving toward filling the whole space with her work, as if it’s some kind of painting installation, or maybe it is just an explosion in the paint factory, frozen in a second.
