| Laurie Lifland Levey grew up
in West Orange, NJ, where she discovered her artistic strength in a family
struggling to cope with a variety of losses and adjustments. Laurie lost
her mother to cancer at age five. Two years later her father remarried
and she became part of a blended family. In the years that followed, Laurie
used her art as a navigational tool to create order in her world.
From the time her daughter Gabrielle was born until her son Jason graduated
from high school, Laurie had been a stay-at-home mom. Throughout those
twenty-one years, Laurie had been involved in her children’s lives
and activities, spending many hours volunteering her time and talent in
their schools and temple activities. Her actual painting time had been
almost nonexistent, but within her volunteer choices she was able to use
her creativity to enrich the ultimate outcome. As important as this involvement
was to her, she always had the desire to one-day concentrate on her art
as a way to nourish her soul and expand her own spirit. With both children
out of the house this desire is now being realized.
Over the years, her painting interests have changed. One of her favorite
artists is Georgia O’Keefe whose influence is very apparent in Laurie’s
first paintings. As Laurie’s interests moved toward abstract expressionism,
she began to transform objects, stretching their boundaries. She worked
on a series of abstractions based on a piece of sea coral. From there
she transitioned into paintings of a more realistic nature pulling out
elements from her abstractions and integrating them into her work. When
these elements of tubes and vessels would not go away she turned to life
painting and still life painting classes to temper her imagination and
create a focus.
Currently, Laurie is working on a series of paintings where the organic
meets with the inorganic. Again, Laurie attempts to bring the focus in
on a particular object. She is intrigued by the weathered man-made objects
such as mailbox that wear with age and environmental elements in the midst
of nature’s seasonal beauty and resurgence along the road’s
edge.
Laurie received an Associates degree in Textile Design from the Fashion
Institute of Technology, and a BA in Painting from Montclair State University.
She has shown her work locally in the Sprague Gallery in Montclair, the
Wilson Gallery in Mountain Lakes, Robin Hutchins Gallery in Maplewood,
the JCC of West Orange, The Circle Gallery at The Village in Livingston,
Town Hall and the Community Center of Livingston, and NJSVA of Summit.
Her works are in several private collections.
Artist Statement
As I review my own work over the years, I see so plainly
how my art has reflected who I am. My earlier abstract work was an exploration
of a passion and the freedom to pursue it. I took an object and explored
it in whatever direction it took me. I didn’t understand its significance
until just recently when I started thinking about my art and its significance
in my life.
When I became a wife and a mother I pulled a piece of myself in to make
room for the traditional roles that a wife and mother concerned herself
with. My art simmered on the back burner. A lot of the art that I created
was done in a classroom setting. I used to refer to this work as keeping
my self in paint so I wouldn’t lose it all together. Each time I
started after a lapse of time was like relearning everything all over
again. Most of this work is still-life. When I look at this work together
as a whole I feel stifled by it now. It was a very introspective time
for me as I struggled to integrate the life of an artist, a wife, and
a mother. I always prided myself in putting 150% into whatever I did.
I couldn’t do that with my art so I didn’t believe in myself
as an artist because I either wasn’t painting or I was just going
through the exercise of painting.
With my children grown and my life my own now, the ideas and the paintings
that I’ve conjured up in my head are starting to come to life. I’ve
envisioned a series of paintings that depict the road’s edges. I
have two of these paintings hanging in this show. These mailboxes were
photographed at various angles and painted with artistic license. They
are like a breath of fresh air to me. They nourish my soul. I feel myself
moving forward in my life and becoming more comfortable with myself in
my journey …
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