Laura Parker
Shared Symbols

Raised in the city of Atlanta, Laura Parker experienced great international exchange with Latin American artists and academic colleagues from Cuba, Mexico, Central and South America.  She is a mother, a mixed media studio painter, a singer/songwriter and a psychotherapist. She has worked in her practice with youth, adults, and families, using art as a healing tool.  She is drawn to work on the grid as a modern painter, and this time she travels to Argentina and Uruguay to study the Constructivist movement and School of the South.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Wherever I go, I look for images and objects that may hold composition potential. There are so many shapes, shadows, and lines to be captured on any given day. I actively look for these images wherever I may be. Concrete walls, power lines, scrap metal materials, construction sites, and abandoned buildings offer magical composition ideas. Nature offers the same. I look among trees, rocks, clouds, and bodies of water for form and composition.

I typically photograph or sometimes sketch these images. I ‘feel’ the compositions for rhythm and harmony, just as I would when writing a music composition. I set out to transfer these images to canvas, paper, wood, and glass with paint, collage, and mixed media materials. As an abstract painter, I move quickly and directly, ‘listening’ to the rhythm of the image. For me, it is about listening to the spiritual unconscious from deep within, when I am creating. That is where I feel the true creativity. The final outcome of the piece remains secondary to the journey of the creative process. It is in the process that I find myself and in turn, find the finished piece.