Statement
My work examines childhood, care, and the ways our surroundings and circumstances shape what is possible in our lives. Through realist paintings and drawings, I focus on ordinary moments—children at play, gestures of care, periods of rest, and interactions in public and domestic spaces. These moments allow me to explore larger questions about belonging, vulnerability, responsibility, and how we care for one another.
Working in oil, charcoal, graphite, and colored pencil, I am drawn to what gesture, expression, proximity, and environment can reveal about people and their relationships. The figure remains central because memory, for me, is closely tied to time spent with people. My pieces often begin with observation or photographs from personal and family archives, but the reference also helps determine the medium. When a photograph holds fine information—wrinkles in a hand, strands of hair, or a subtle expression—drawing allows me to attend closely to those details. When the image leaves something unresolved, paint allows color, light, and atmosphere to carry what the photograph cannot fully describe.
Mixing color is one of the most absorbing parts of painting for me. A single family of blues can become sky or denim; through small shifts, the denim can feel soft and worn or stiff and rugged. I am fascinated by the way paint can become air, fabric, light, or weight. That transformation gives me another way to build mood and to suggest the lived experience of the figures I paint.
Childhood has long offered me a way to consider curiosity, wonder, fairness, and opportunity. Over time, that exploration has expanded to consider how care and circumstance shape a child’s sense of safety, belonging, and possibility.
Underlying the work is an ongoing question: What does it mean to be well cared for when the conditions shaping our lives are not the same for everyone? Rather than offering a single answer, I use the figure to hold moments of tenderness, uncertainty, strength, and connection, inviting viewers to consider what care makes possible in both individual lives and the communities we share.
“Through figurative paintings, I try to capture moments that depict how the practice of inclusion is perceived and negotiated in our daily lives. All of my work is created in the spirit of philanthropy as a way to balance some of the ugliness of the world.”
—Lauren R. Lyde