Biography
Laurie Shapiro is inspired by the natural world and by patterns that repeat in all things. Many of her drawings come from nature - her flowers are inspired by the places she has lived in and visited: succulents, plants from California, "female" imagined flowers, outer space flowers. She screen prints these drawn images onto various fabrics and then hand sews them as repetitive elements onto mixed media paintings. Her work comes from within, ideas pop out at her and she tries her best to just go with them. She sees worlds of magic and beauty in the trees and the flowers: a grounded and mystical connection she knows exists in all things and shares in her pieces.
Shapiro’s large-scale, tapestry-like, mixed-media pieces are sometimes viewed from the wall and sometimes walked inside of as full installations. From afar, her pieces look like paintings, but when viewed more closely, one can see the hand-stitching of her screen printed drawings thus revealing their mixed-media nature.
Shapiro’s holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University (2012), during which she spent a semester abroad at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey (2011). She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
(Adjacent photo by Jeffrey Sklan. Below photos by Pen Densham.)
