Laurie Maves ART

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     Freeport Art Museum, Regional Young Artists, Freeport, IL, group show

1995     Bering Sea Art Exchange International, Petropvavlovsk, Russia, group show

1995     Woman Made Gallery, Life Cycles of Women, Chicago, IL, juried group show

1997     SAIC’s Gallery 57, The Graduate Exhibition, Chicago, IL, group show

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, Denver, CO, juried group 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, Denver, CO, group show

2007     CORE New Art Space, Denver, CO juried group show

2007     Dynamis ART, Sante Fe, NM, group exhibition

2007     CAPSULE Events Center, Art-O-Mart, group show

2007     Art Students League of Denver Summer Art Market

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,  Dallas, TX, juried group

2007     Lakewood Cultural Center, Houses of the Dead, Lakewood, CO, juried group

2007     ZOMBIE show, Bad Art for Bad People, Denver, CO, juried group

2007     Denver Center for Performing Arts (DCPA), Denver, CO, juried group 

2007     The Other Side Arts (TOSA), Denver, CO, group show with Laura Kazzaz

2008     855 Inca Studios, Denver, Colorado

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, Chicago, IL

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

2008                 The Falcon, Denver, CO, for Zebra Junction CD release party

2008                 The Fox Theater, Boulder, CO, for Zebra Junction CD release party

2008                 The Cherry Creek Shopping Center, for the Mask Project, media coverage for FOX31's Good Morning Colorado and 9 NEWS' KUSA

2008                 The Soiled Dove Underground, Denver, CO, for Rob Drabkin and Lisa Genee

2008                 The Oriental Theater, Denver, CO, for the BlueBird Equation, the Missing DuFrenes and Manther Orange

 

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, Denver, CO

2004-2006         Heritage, Culture and Arts Commission, Lakewood, CO

2006                 The LAB of Art and Ideas, Lakewood, CO

2008                 Artwork Network, Denver, CO

 

Education

1993                 BS in Studio Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison

1997                 MA in Art Therapy, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)