About the Artist
Laurie Maves has been painting her entire life. In 2006, however, she took a leap of faith deciding to focus most of her creative energies on painting and creating works of art full time. "if not now, when?"
Being an artist full time can be a very challenging and exhausting venture, but it's the one true thing that brings her joy.
Laurie's most recent body of work, entitled "trash to treasure" looks at how one recylces everything in one's life, from canvases to relationships (to see more, please visit the Artist Statement 2008 page).
If she's not working on this series, then you more than likely can find her scouting out new cities and countries to exhibit her works in as well as developing community partnerships and collaborations that address creativity and the need for art in one's everyday life. She loves to challenge her audience to think differently about their lives and to really explore what makes them fruitful, what makes them worth living, what brings them beauty, and ultimately, what brings them joy.
If you have ideas, notions or thoughts about hosting a city arts exchange program or would like to participate in an artist collaboration, please sign the Guestbook, and you will be contacted shortly.
Artist Statement 2008
The feminine of my trash to treasure metaphor.
For over a decade now I have been painting women: women who smile, women who frown, women who pout, women who ponder. I was often influenced by such masters as Botticelli, Modigliani, Gauguin and Picasso.
In the beginning of 2006 my work began to change and evolve. I used more materials, started to pour paint, added assemblage, and increasing amounts of text, written or collaged onto my canvases. With the text, it seemed as if these women were beginning to tell their stories instead of plain existing. After viewing the diary of Frida Kahlo, followed by my introduction to the raw and biting work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I found a stronger calling to look further into what these feminine figures were all about. Botticelli’s Venus imagery as well as likenesses of Frida began to surface in my paintings along with red faces, big orb-like eyes, swirling trees and layers upon layers of COLOR. I gradually came to the realization that all these feminine figures I was painting for the last decade were all aspects of me, compositions of Laurie, and what goes on in her trippy little mind. I often lack words to describe what I’m feeling or experiencing on any given Sunday, therefore, my painting becomes my way of communicating with the world – a way for me to compose the diary of my life, a way to tell my own story through my imagery.
In 2007, I began to spend a greater deal of my time painting and needed more surfaces to work on. I had the notion of reworking some older pieces and eventually repainted some paintings that no longer served me. I then began to focus on the recycling of “canvases,” be they old canvases of mine or someone else’s, wood panels, and even old siding that was found along the highway. In early 2008, at the suggestion of a friend, I added leather handbags that I gathered up from thrift stores to my list of interesting vistas for art. All these things that other people no longer needed or wanted, I looked at them in a new and different way – always trying to find the potential beauty in what others have let go. Sculptor Aaron Kramer’s statement, “Trash is the failure of imagination,” rings so true in my soul. I believe artists have a special responsibility in creating art to be as green as they possibly can, and use their own creativity to explore new ways of presenting the mundane and ordinary to the world in new and challenging ways. Why buy new canvases, when there is a load of stuff out there to work on that others would rather throw away? Someone else’s trash has slowly but surely become my land of treasure.
Presently and thematically, I continue to explore where my life is headed through my self-portraiture, figures and landscape painting, while always on the lookout for my own omens. I constantly wonder where and how and why I exist in the world, as I do, trying to find my own personal stillness in a mind that constantly races. While vowing to “never conform,” as a beautiful gallerina once told me, I will continue to explore how I recycle not only material things, but also relationships in my life, always looking for the treasure – in everything, in everyone.
Exhibitions & Live Painting
Exhibitions
1994
1995 Bering Sea Art Exchange International,
1995 Woman Made Gallery, Life Cycles of Women,
1997 SAIC’s Gallery 57, The Graduate Exhibition,
2001 Flux Gallery, Denver, CO, group show
2002 Flux Gallery, Denver, CO, 2-person show
2003 The Gathering Place, Chicago, IL, group show
2003 ArtZ Gallery in Cherry Creek, Denver, CO
2004 Kamlet & Shepperd, The Diva Show,
2006 4th Dimension Gallery Contours, Denver, CO, 2-person show
2006 The Other Side Arts Gallery, 5th Annual Women’s Show Denver, CO group show
2006 Red Rocks Country Club Art Walk, Morrison, CO, juried group show
2006 Lakewood Cultural Center, Crossings, Lakewood, CO, juried group show
2006 Square101 Gallery, Denver, CO, solo show
2006 Square101 Gallery, Denver, CO group show
2006 Lakewood Cultural Center, Holiday Artisans Show, Lakewood, CO, juried group
2007 Gallery Gustave @ Tastes, Denver, CO, solo show
2007 Kazzaz Art Corporation,
2007 CORE New Art Space, Denver, CO juried group show
2007 Dynamis ART,
2007
2007 Art Students League of
2007 Soulrise Gallery, Denver, CO
2007 Lakewood Cultural Center, City Limits, Lakewood, CO, juried group
2007 ARTFARM, Denver Urban Gardens, Denver, CO, juried group
2007 Bath House Cultural Center, Dia de los Muertos Show,
2007
2007 ZOMBIE show, Bad Art for Bad People, Denver, CO, juried group
2007
2007 The Other Side Arts (TOSA),
2008 855 Inca Studios,
2008 Square 101 Gallery, Denver, CO, solo show
2008 Lapis Gallery, the Attic Show, Denver, CO, group show
2008 Ditto Gallery, Denver, CO, group show
Live Painting Events by Invitation
2003-2006 ARTOPIA, Denver, CO
2005, 2007 BareWalls, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
2003-2007 La Piazza dell Arte, Denver, CO
2007 Red Rocks Amphitheater, Live Painting with Zebra Junction, and Comedian Josh Blue
2007 The Gothic Theater - Live Painting with Zebra Junction
2007 Dazzle Jazz Club, Denver, CO - Live Painting for the Ralph Sharon Trio
2007 The Mask Project Kick-off Party, Denver, CO
2008 Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, for CultureHaus
2008 The Jet Hotel, Denver, CO, for the Mask Project, Young Professionals Party
2008 Colorado History Museum, Denver, CO, for the Shining Stars Foundation
2008 Hodi's Halfnote, Ft. Collins, CO, for Zebra Junction CD release party
Corporate and Celebritry Collections
David Cole and Associates, Denver, CO works on loan 2007
Yanari, Watson and McGaughey, LLC, Greenwood Village, CO
Ralph Sharon
Brandi Carlile
Nina Storey
Memberships
2000-2002 Flux Gallery, cooperative space,
2004-2006 Heritage, Culture and Arts Commission,
2006 The
2008 Artwork Network, Denver, CO
Education
1993 BS in Studio Art,
1997 MA in Art Therapy, the School of the Art Institute of
