Profile of the Week: Lauren Moore

Lauren Moore’s exposure to different cultures and landscapes has rendered her art a vat of nature-inspired flair. Her love for environmental studies and her artistic awakening evolved into a marriage of the two in her creative work and what drives it. The abstract quality of her artwork truly reflects a metaphysical experience of our natural world. There is a calmness about Lauren’s simultaneous use of preciseness and wispiness, that is iterative in all her work.

Lauren connected with us on our online forum to give us the opportunity to hear more about her creative process and what drives her passion for art.

Where are you from?

I currently reside in Vancouver, British Columbia but I was born in Texas, and moved to Abu Dhabi in the UAE before I turned one. I spent 8 years living there and moved to Nigeria after that for nearly 2 years before I returned to the USA (Florida).

When did you start your art practice?

In 11th grade, I had to fill an art credit and ended up in advanced art – which was nerve wracking because I hadn’t done anything creative since I was in elementary school and was more of a science fanatic in high school and was actively searching for a school that had a great Environmental Science program. Next thing you know I fell in love with painting and by my grade 12 year, I was taking three art classes and continued once I got to university.

How do you describe your vision for your work?

Our earth holds much beauty that it makes us forget about any negative issues going on even if it’s just for a minute. I want to channel that sentiment into my paintings so that when others view it, they feel the flow of connection with nature.

How has your work evolved over time?

During my first couple of years of university I focused on animal activism – extremely dark pieces where I’d reverse the roles of animals with humans. I even had a woodblock print of a seal clubbing a baby – everyone in my class was horrified. Later, one of my painting courses was strictly working abstract – at first I absolutely hated it because my professor always told me I worked too much on each painting and told me to finish before I overworked it, but I was so used to putting in so much detail and spent hours upon hours on works. Now here I am, focused on solely abstract works which can still take hours to complete but there are times, I can complete a work in minutes.

What are your artistic/creative inspirations?

Ultimately, nature is the biggest inspiration for me. The different compositions that you see with mountain ranges or when you go for a hike and see little ‘windows’ through the trees and get this stunning view that’s more beautiful than the view at the top. When you’re freezing your ass off in -40*, you look up and the sky is so clear you can see the milky way and all of a sudden you don’t feel so cold. Colours that you see naturally within our world – the variety of colours that change during a sunset from those cotton candy pinks to the periwinkle blues once it starts to get dark. When I went on a trip to Iceland, I took so many photos of the landscapes and even the ground because it would go from being extreme contrasts of bleak blackness of volcanic rock to the brightest greens of the moss or even the burnt orange dirt. In nature you see these colour combinations that you’d never expect and are often not used because humans are not always taught that there is harmony in all things. If you know how to work with them and explore new things we can break the boundaries that we are taught. I find it fascinating.

Tell me about your process.

Creating comes in waves for me. It’s never a constant flow, it’s usually small bursts of non-stop working with long periods of time in between – almost as my mind needs a rest to recharge because if I just create to create then it wears on my confidence and all of sudden I’m trying too hard. Once a burst has been triggered – it’s usually from something small seeing colours in a sunset or reflecting on previous trips I’ve taken or even stumbling upon a new artist – I buy around 15 tester-sized house paints along with a bunch of wood panels (right now I’m obsessed with circle panels) and put on a random radio from Spotify, then start pouring paint. Often I pick up the panels to help add movement in the paint. It takes me a few tries until it becomes more fluid and intuitive, forming a composition or colour combination that is aesthetically pleasing to me.

Do you think your work has a message? How is it received?

I do hope that my work just allows people to feel safe with whatever they’re feeling or at least gives them a sense of ease and calm. I think that right now in particular, the collective anxiety shared by everyone in the world needs art and hopefully mine can help ease some viewers.

What is safe and/or dangerous in terms of experimentation?

Personally, experimentation has always been such a positive experience for me – even when it doesn’t work out. I think it gives the artist a chance to grow and learn even further through their work with trial and error – failure is just as important as success. Failure fine tunes the process.

Where would you like to see your work in 3 years? What goals do you have for your practice?

Posting my work on Instagram is still a very new thing that I began recently. It was something that made me feel so vulnerable and I didn’t have the confidence to do right out of school. So starting with small goals – like creating a proper website to sell my work and start applying to be in shows at small galleries. I’d also like to start making my own panels again, something I learnt in school and always did but lost touch with after university. I would love for people to find movement when they look at my creations. I hope my work is associated with nature and the way nature flows.

Are there other emerging artists you can recommend?

Kendra Archer is an amazing photographer, probably one of my favourites. She finds the perfect light, contrast and composition! I feel like photography is one of the hardest mediums because it can be sometimes easy to get a nice looking photo – especially with today’s smartphones, but it takes even more skill to find a jaw dropping “How on earth did you get that shot” photo. Annnndd she does that every time.

Cassidy Routh is an illustrator/designer, and her work always either leaves me laughing or just stunned by her natural talent. We actually met in middle school and I used to scribble on her French notes and she’d create the goofiest character out of it, then we’d go to her house and she’d show me her paintings and I always was so amazed by how she could pick just anything up and create the most beautiful works I’d ever seen. 

FRONTRUNNER online forum: @Lauren.moore
Instagram: @_moore.lauren_