Artists

Laura Hallen

Primary Medium: Mixed Media
Other Mediums: Painting

Laura Hallen’s work engages the contrast between how we present ourselves in the public versus the private interior lives we each have. She uses Plexiglas as a metaphor for her skin. Skin is place where our inside and the outside worlds meet. Skin functions as a canvas that we can inscribe with messages about our identity, skin can also be used as a shield to shelter and hide our secrets. Our outer appearance can sometimes trump and distract from the real issues located on the interior space. Skin is protective and it has the ability to breathe while it holds our bodies together.

A Plexiglas skin connects her body of work. A smooth, transparent surface hovers just above contained explosions of manipulated plastic plant matter, silk fabrics, pigmented shellac and found materials. By placing everyday objects into an unusual context of a Plexiglas box, a tension and dialogue is created between materials that are familiar while being placed in a context that is unfamiliar.

The use of the Plexiglas box is an integral part of her work, unlike the traditional use of the vitrine’s function of just protecting the art. The surface of the Plexiglas box portrays how we present ourselves to the world with the importance placed on the exterior, however the most compelling part of my work is behind this layer. Hallen is curious of what is on the inside; dazzling, bound up, complex, fantastic messes each of us contain.

Humans are fragile. Humans are vulnerable to pressures and stress, especially in light of social networking and how we put our best face forward. More and more we are asked to present a perfect image of who we are while we become disconnected to the true person we are inside. Laura Hallen represents the balance and tension between what is on the surface and what is in the interior space in her Plexiglas boxes.

Studio Number: 428
Phone: (612) 598-0159
Website: http://www.laurahallen.com
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Open First Thursdays? Yes
Open for Art Attack? Yes
Open for Art-A-Whirl? Yes
Hours: By appointment.