Laura Hart Newlon

http://www.laurahartnewlon.com/

artist statement

My work evolves from the intersection of everyday life, photography and materiality. I am interested in the possibilities of the overlooked and undervalued. The elements used in my practice are drawn from collections or unintended accumulations of banal objects that I transform through sculptural and photographic processes. Moving between the physical space of objects, the social space in which their meaning is negotiated, and the surface of the photograph itself, my work maps the quotidian, suggesting how the unspectacular might be relocated and revalued.

My most recent work involves transforming common items such as watch bands, wallpaper and hard drives in such a way that they are both familiar and unfamiliar. I am curious as to how these objects when decontextualized can reveal their multiple lives: commodities, detritus, containers of cultural memory.

what do you love about the MFA program at the SAIC?

I love SAIC’s focus on art-making as an interdisciplinary endeavor. I’ve benefitted from working closely with faculty advisors and my peers in many different departments. I am particularly excited by the opportunity to get feedback through interdisciplinary critiques.

anticipated graduation date: Spring 2013