Laura Berman

Somata 5

2021

Laura Crehuet Berman is a native of Barcelona, Spain, where her love for pattern, design and bold colors originated. Her work’s focus on relationships and recombination of forms relate to her nomadic history of relocation and travel. Indeed, she is always comfortable anywhere as long as her personal collections of things are nearby– and this is her inspiration. "I have spent a lot of time in the middle of Kansas for the past few years. The Flint Hills region is a vast landscape of nothingness–no trees, no dwellings, no people–it's akin to being out at sea. Out there the distance between sky and land is very short and unmediated. I am equally mesmerized by the minuscule and the monumental, supernovas exploding into far away galaxies and ancient oddly-shaped pebbles that have never been touched before. My work reflects the connections between these expanses and details within space, and how even the smallest action can create a cascade of events and phenomena. My images are painted and printed onto paper in a series of iterations. Families of colors, imagery, and compositions relate together closely in my work without ever duplicating each other. This way of working enables an important physical labor to my research and ideas, and new connections build in tangible ways as I create my work. As layers build, imagery compounds, colors mix, and patterns form. I keep my process of working dynamic and playful so that my images can evolve as they are made, in turn, building entirely new worlds." Laura Berman's unique monoprints are widely collected around the world. She has created site-specific exhibitions and exhibited her print work at numerous galleries and museums around the country and internationally. In addition, she has been a visiting artist and has worked as an artist-in-residence at numerous institutions throughout the USA and in Europe. Berman is currently a professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she has taught printmaking and book arts since 2002. She received her BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and her MFA from Tulane University.