Laurie Shapiro

Works in New York

BIO

Laurie Shapiro (b. 1990, New York) is a painter and installation artist based in LA and NYC. She received her BFA in 2012 from Carnegie Mellon University. She has exhibited internationally at the Dyer Arts Center, San Diego Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Nashville International Airport, and SACI Florence. Her enveloping installations have been commissioned for Otherworld, Walter Studios, and Weedmaps, where her piece “Flowers Are Not A Crime” was shown at various festivals, including The Governors Ball, Life is Beautiful, and Cali Vibes. Shapiro has completed artist residencies at the American Academy in Rome, the Kala Art Institute, Surel’s Place, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. She has been awarded several grants, including a California Council for the Arts Fellowship and a Puffin Grant. Her work is internationally found in public and private collections, including at SACI Florence, Bilkent University, and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Her work has appeared in TV segments, including WTAE and KTNV, Jhene Aiko’s 4/20 Performance with Weedmaps, and in publications, including Fiber Arts Now, Artillery Magazine, and LA Weekly.

I create all-encompassing, visually stimulating installations and individual pieces representing an amplification of my inner world. Being hard-of-hearing, my experience of the outer world is often muted. I primarily understand the world through visual stimuli and internal feelings, and this, in turn, colors all of my work. My internal emotional experiences manifest as psychedelic womb-like environments enveloping viewers in ecofeminist spaces of safety and care. I meticulously and meditatively labor over my work, handcrafting each element into painted pieces layered with sewing, screen printing, and sculpture. Paintings are particularly expressive, with subjects often using exaggerated gestures to communicate. Floral patterns and imagery are central to my artistic practice—drawings of plants that “speak” to me. Heavily informed by my internal and spiritual experiences, my work urges viewers to listen not through noise but through feeling and intuition.