The Power of Community with Maria Colom only at Laura I. Art Gallery

Venue: Virtual Art
Date: Thursday, July 8, 2021
07:00 PM
Address: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-power-of-community-with-maria-colom-only-at-laura-i-art-gallery-tickets-158603000845
Location: London
Organiser: Laura I. Art Gallery

Multi -Award Winning Laura I.Art Gallery is pleased to present The Power of Community, a super special event designed to close the series of solo exhibitions curated, organized and hosted by Laura I. Art Gallery over the Pandemic.

To do this we have invited special speakers to celebrate the end of an era and also to celebrate Maria Colom’s fantastic new body of works of Spectators.

Welcome to the world of immersive art, a place where our egos are forced into artistic endeavour.

An interactive show celebrating the beginning of the return to gatherings after the Covid restrictions are getting lifted, the artist explores emotional and existential ideas such as Success, Hope or Acceptance. The paintings are ultimately about a state of mind. Each piece can be evaluated as a zone of mental and emotional reflection.

The Spectators Project, an association of paintings and an audience, if painting can be imagined to perform.

The aim of the show is to uplift our spirits, to boost our self-esteem and to provide positive thoughts that we all need in particular after this difficult year.

The artist seeks to communicate positive feelings and make us feel accepted, liked, supported. Reflecting on her work, the artist has said “I aim to make paintings with a positive emotional impact and beauty: A moment of Encouragement, a moment of Recognition”.

Colom’s recent paintings depict spectators scenes, a combination of figurative and abstract, materiality and mark making, order and gesture and takes us to a psychological journey of the Sociology of feelings.

There is also material experimentation to add an extra layer of meaning, a symbolic interaction of our thought processes. For instance, the series Touch Wood is painted with the use of wood as the support and wood varnishes as a metaphor for Luck or Hope.

Another example, the Series Success, uses industrial metal paints of Gold, Silver and Bronze as a metaphor for the aim to succeed, as an important goal in our current competitive society. We see value in these metals, or is it even too much of it and we gravitate towards avarice?

The uplifting energy of her more colourful use of colour for a positive psychological response in the viewer.

How can the feeling of the collective be transferred to the viewer? Deliberately, these paintings are presented on the surface of the canvas, without depth, as in reaching out, the artist’s intention is for the characters to communicate or even challenge the viewer. A symbolic interaction, reversing the traditional relationship between art and viewer.

The show presents 15 new paintings, created during lockdown from large scale to intimate smaller works, from very colourful to monochromatic.

The crowds the artist depicts are reflective of the society we live in, a reminder that within the crowd there are countless individual stories and unique experiences in a celebration of our diversity.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-power-of-community-with-maria-colom-only-at-laura-i-art-gallery-tickets-158603000845

Laura Iosifescu

Laura is a professional artist and the founder of Laura I.Art Gallery.She currently lives and works in London. She developed her basic skills in traditional art during her time at the Fine Art High school in Romania but found herself reaching her full potential as a student in the Department of Fine Art at the University of East London. From there she went on to open her own local gallery where she is currently curating a series of exhibitions. As an artist, Laura is best known for her re-interpretation of the medium of paint as an aesthetic vehicle. Utilising self-designed machines and other unconventional techniques as tools to manipulate paint, she challenges the viewer by re-examining how paint can be transformed in her collection of wall mounted “living paintings” - flowerscapes with depth and colour introduced by her signature style.. The flower motifs are intended to represent and investigate an accumulation of life experiences and ideals to do with freedom and courage, life and death, identity and belief, which are channelled into her art through her three dimensional forms and colours. Eventually dissatisfaction with the format of wall mounted paintings, a feeling that the medium was imprisoned by the canvas, led to a series of experiments culminating in Laura’s revolutionary Blossom Escape, which transformed her flowerscapes into the real world in the form of a floral dress made entirely of paint. It has been recognized and highly praised by the press, and by well established professionals in the art world and was shown in an exhibition at Saatchi Gallery alongside work shown by artists such as Tracey Emin ,Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Idris Khan and Xavier Mascaro. She has displayed her work throughout the UK and in France and Portugal and in New Orleans and Los Angeles in the USA. Her work has been published in Landscape Art Review, La Dolce Vita magazine, HESA Inprint magazine, and in The State of Art vol 2 published by Bare Hill and there has been press coverage in the Financial Times, the Guardian and in the local press and on the web. Sixty per cent of Laura’s work is now in private collections around the world which makes her work a great investment. In 2016 Laura opened the first contemporary art gallery in Barking, Essex, an area which is now at the forefront of regeneration in East London. The gallery was inaugurated by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London and Darren Rodwell, the leader of the local Council. She is currently curating a series of exhibitions in her own space at the Gallery, including the highly successful Blessings of Life and Codes of Faith, and is embarking upon a series of art workshops. Laura Iosifescu is an idealistic young artist who believes in a world where beliefs and cultures no longer separate people but can be shared and celebrated. Her aim is to break down barriers, including those between artist and audience, and foster a collaborative and creative community in this part of London. With highly successful curatorial exhibitions and painting workshops in The Laura I. Gallery in Barking, Laura is truly inspired towards making this world a better place through art.