Laura James Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Laura James (b.1994) is a British painter based in London. Her practice explores the unconscious crossover between our internal and external worlds, seeking to unearth a primal place where the mind meets the land. Using predominantly water-based mediums, coloured pencil and monoprint, she weaves dreamlike terrains that emerge through a multi-layered and intuitive process.
In my latest series of works, I am investigating what it means to stay attuned with the ancient and earthly while existing in a time that is obsessed with all things artificial and digital. To investigate this concept, my painting practice has been focused on enmeshing neon-tinged tones within a palette that feels straight from the earth’s core. Acidic 'screens' of orange, pink and green are suspended within sacred, sedimentary structures, serving as portals between ancient times where our ancestors would have been governed by the land and skies, and the paralyzing modern-day reality of living life through a technological lens. Hazy, primitive plains and scrappy mountain ranges serve as symbols of our outer worlds, projected almost like ‘app tiles’ onto screens of the unconscious mind. I am achieving this through a combination of monoprinting experiments as well as my signature intuitive painting practice using mainly watercolour and ink, building layers of texture with coloured pencil and some oil pastel.
