LAUREL FARRIN
We act as antennas sensing the world, absorbing ever-shifting experiences with the weight and substance of a human body’s gravitational presence. How do we glean information and make meaning? Familiar becomes unfamiliar; pathetic becomes humorous. I hitch work to a two way process- the reception, transformation and construction of images and abstractions. The process is embodied in materials that impose resistances, obstructions, turns, flows. The ground of a painting may function as a stand in for the mind–a mind in thought as well as a mind before those thoughts appear. I pay attention to how these shifts redirect me to new possibilities. My body and the materials wrestle and collaborate to reconfigure something into another thing that is unpredictable and surprising–sometimes awkwardly funny but also present and true to material and self.
ABOUT LAUREL FARRIN
Laurel Farrin is an Associate Professor and head of the painting and drawing department in the School of Art and Art History, at the University of Iowa. She received a BFA.from Ohio University- Athens and an M.F.A. from the University of Maryland. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM; Yaddo, MacDowell, Dora Maar, Pratt Institute Fine Art Summer Residency, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Farrin received an individual artist grant from the Washington, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Exhibitions include Lesley Heller Gallery; NY, NY; Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY; The Bronx River Art Center; The Figge Museum, The Albany International Airport; Carroll Square Gallery, Wash. DC; Roswell Museum and Art Center; the Des Moines (Iowa) Art Center; the Florida Center for Contemporary Art in Tampa; Spaces in Cleveland, Ohio; Anton Gallery; the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Washington Project for the Arts, in Washington, D.C.Laurel Farrin received a B.F.A. from Ohio University-Athens and an M.F.A. from the University of Maryland. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM; Yaddo, MacDowell, Dora Maar, Pratt Institute Fine Art Summer Residency, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Farrin received an individual artist grant from the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Exhibitions include Lesley Heller Gallery; NY, NY; Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY; The Bronx River Art Center; The Figge Museum, The Albany International Airport; Carroll Square Gallery, Wash. DC; Roswell Museum and Art Center; the Des Moines (Iowa) Art Center; the Florida Center for Contemporary Art in Tampa; Spaces in Cleveland, Ohio; Anton Gallery; the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Washington Project for the Arts, in Washington, D.C.