Laura Wood
Laura Wood is a contemporary painter who has exhibited throughout Canada and the United States. Her most recent exhibitions include galleries such as Duran Mashaal Gallery in Montreal as well as several art fairs including representation with the same gallery in Texas, Miami, and New York. Other exhibitions in Toronto include solo shows with Tatar Gallery and Lehmann Leskiw Fine Arts. Publications include a feature with the Magenta Foundation and Laura’s works remain in private and public collections internationally in Canada, the United States, Beijing, Paris, and Abu Dhabi.
The oil paintings range in size from large scale to intimately small and depict specific subject matter which reflect light such as the representation of sunlight through forests, the surface of the ocean shore, swans, or chandeliers. Despite being photorealistic and almost monochromatic, Laura’s paintings portrays her subjects as unrecognizable, distorted by blurs and intense focus of directed illumination. Unlike the works of Gehart Richter, who centers his attention on photorealistic blurred oil paintings, Laura distorts her subjects to the point of being almost totally abstract.
With intense, focused light and selective cropping the viewer may feel as if they were struck in the head, just waking up, running through the forest, or looking at swans from a far distance in the fog. These oil paintings have a similar look to blurred photography taken with a polaroid or vintage camera containing a hazy atmosphere which may reflect a confused or unready state of mind. The color choices within the works remain quite interesting as there seems to be an array of naturalistic colors drenched in tones of black and white, which gives the paintings an almost monochromatic appearance. With intensity, our attention becomes directed towards the subject’s out of focus distortions while being drenched in circles and pools of light which seem to crystalize in the air. Laura’s most interesting depictions tend to be of her swans and chandeliers because the fowls appear drenched in darkness revealing themselves as an array of light while the fixtures convey luminosity and transparency similar to the look of sunlight penetrating linen.
Chandelier 25 (pictured above) depicts rapid distortions in perspective and depth of field of a chandelier bathed in darkness rather than illuminating a space. As if the chandelier were decorative rather than functional, the fixture barely puts out any light, probably because the blurred distortions bring out the darkness rather than focus an intensity on luminosity. We are taken back by the striking appearance of what would otherwise be a familiar object by the distortions of light and penetrating shadow.
Laura Wood creates theatrical paintings which could only be brought about with the magic of film and photography. These photorealistic depictions are so intensely distorted yet naturalistic to the point of being impossible to capture through direct observation. Through the representation of oil painting, Laura captures a surface which could only be revealed through the optics of a lens providing distorted perspective. With an array of crystalized light particles and optical contortions, she provides a new way of approaching subject matter which reflects poetic and philosophical purpose and meaning.
