February 16 - March 16, 2024
Forest Elegy
​Lauren Woods

Artist Statement:
Embodied expression, nature's consciousness, and the transformational properties of time are overarching themes in my practice. The concept of mythic time is contemplated visually through paintings that combine fabricated and observed environments with mutable narratives, much like what happens in a dream state.

Archetypal storytelling traditions across various periods and cultures describe concepts of mythic time as a perpetual present where everything simultaneously occurs eternally. This perspective contrasts with a linear time perception, which imposes an artificial sense of order and hierarchy in nature, communication styles (e.g., written language vs. images or dance), passing eras, often through domination (cultural and religious), and highly individualistic thinking. Informed by this expansive realization of time, my painting practice contemplates our connections to nature's transformative regenerative cycles. 
In this body of work, nature is a primary source of visual metaphor and inspiration. Large-scale paintings depicting lush, wooded thresholds invite viewers into a mythological space, where areas of decay and growth become reflective settings to consider non-human space and time. These landscapes indicate nature's transcendental aspects, where hunted animals embody recent collective trauma, serving as sacrificial stand-ins to take on the gravity of current events at the periphery of our consciousness. Methodical indirect (underpainting/glazing) and spontaneous alla prima (wet into wet) painting techniques synthesize into a careful atmosphere of light underneath various gestural textures. This process suggests the energetic presence of the artist's hand, manifesting as verdant growth paradoxically frozen in time. These works' subject matter, scale, and installation style intend to engage the viewer viscerally, considering how the viewer's body relates to the depicted subject and approaches the work as a space to enter.  
Depictions of ethereal environments allow these paintings to exist between conflicting states, emphasizing the tension between intentionally beautiful passages of paint and visual allusions to the hushed violence of death, relating nature's regenerative aspects to the mystery of our corporeal existence. By using representational painting techniques, I can highlight the tension of visual perception and remembered inner knowing, inviting viewers to project their own experiences and symbolism onto the work, creating a living dialogue between the painting and the viewer. With this, I invite viewers toward internal reflection and engagement in poetic thinking through shared visual experiences.

Artist Bio:
Lauren Woods (she/her) is an artist whose practice and creative research explore concepts of mythic time. Artworks become spaces to examine notions of nostalgia, desire, power, beauty, death, and embodied expression. Personal myth is developed visually across various mediums such as painting, video, and dance performances.
Born in Mobile, Alabama, Lauren received her MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art after completing her BA in studio art at Spring Hill College. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Art in the Department of Art & Art History at Auburn University, where she teaches figure drawing and painting.
Lauren has exhibited in galleries across the US and abroad. Regionally, she has shown work at the Gadsden Museum of Art, the Huntsville Museum of Art, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, the Mobile Museum of Art, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and the Wiregrass Museum of Art. She is also a recipient of a 2024 Individual Visual Arts Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. 
In addition to painting, she has worked in partnership with Sheep Meadow Dance Theatre under the direction of Billy Blanken and 10K Productions for the visual art direction of four  live multimedia dance performances performed through Culture Lab LIC in Long Island City, NY. Their most recent collaboration, SMDT Season IV: An Evening of New Classics, was supported by a 2023 New Works Grant through the Queens Arts Fund.

Inventory

 Offering (the Prince)
Oil on linen

Rex Nemorensis
Oil on linen

Rose Study
Oil on canvas

Rose Briar
Oil on wood

Deer Heart
Oil on canvas

Rose Wreath
Oil on wood

Rose Ring
Oil on wood

Field Dress
Oil on linen

Mind/body
Oil on linen

Threshold (laurel hell)
Oil on linen

Body/mind
Oil on linen