Laura Pahlas

medium: painting

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What Is, What Was & A Baby on the Way 2008 Painting	Ladies & Babies 2008 Painting	Casting Shadows 2008 Painting
Crowned in January 2011 Painting	Hydrangeas in November 2010 Painting	Autumn Crisp 2011 Painting
Stalks & Stems 2011 Painting	Stalks in snow 2011 Painting

Contact information
Artist resides in: Madison, WI
Email Address: lpahlas02@gmail.com
Web site: www.laurapahlaspaintings.com

Artist statement
The subjects and ideas I approach in my paintings tend to center on essential concepts such as family, memory and time. In my figurative work, I find it especially fascinating and challenging to create visual narratives that weave past, present and future into one cohesive composition depicting the interplay between memory of the past, awareness in the present and projection into the future.

In my landscapes and paintings of rocks and plants, I deal with similar concepts that draw on the undeniable connections between the human world and the natural world. In painting images of stones on a lake shore or garden plants blanketed with snow, my goal is to depict the effects of time in the natural world. Contrasting this to the concept of time and all its implications in the contemporary, hurried, human world is both thought provoking and enlightening. Our current state of being is obsessed with time and efficiency yet denies its natural progression. I find solace in looking closely at my natural surroundings; particularly the seasonal changes in the gardens planted in my Madison neighborhood--not an untouched, wild version of nature, but a more refined, human-orchestrated version. Upon close observation, I see more than just plants in a garden, but delicate, graceful totems to the passage of time.

Biography
Laura is originally from Ripon, Wis. She currently lives and works in Madison, Wis. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 2008 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Painting. Laura also holds a degree in Art Education. She is currently the art instructor at Walbridge School in Madison.