Laura Hohlwein

Laura Hohlwein, Sandstone

It is hard to find words for the experience of painting, which, though I love words, speaks eloquently to me entirely without them. I don’t normally begin from or force any narrative or concept onto my work; the painting proceeds largely as an exploration of color and the formal aspects of composition. Yet, whether or not images or stories reveal themselves, explicitly or implicitly, the work is always, in one way or another, about my experience of consciousness: of thinking, sensing, being, questioning, recollecting, forgetting. In the paintings, the fragment is not separated from the whole, but is a constituent part, alive and changing. The field, which surrounds each distinct element, is also alive and changing, is also part of an even larger field. Painting is the perfect medium for me to meditate upon this idea of infinite inclusion and constant flux, of the visible and invisible, and to extend my own experience of the lived present moment.