LAURIE SHAPIRO

My progressive condition of deafness gives me no choice but to be in touch with my feelings, my emotions, and my internal world. I have always been connected and aware of myself in this way.  My life, and my art, have been significantly impacted by my experience of deafness. I build visually all-encompassing worlds and emotionally amplified paintings.  This exhibition at the Dyer Center for the Deaf is my “coming-out” as an artist with a condition of deafness, and presenting the work through my experience as a hard-of-hearing individual.

My work encompasses the sacred; I am heavily influenced by the natural world and spiritual experiences. As a mixed media artist, I employ a layering technique that combines painting, screenprinting, sewing, and sculpture to create installations and individual pieces. My installations are particularly transformative, creating otherworldly spaces that transport viewers into an imaginative world, reminiscent of Moroccan quilts or a psychedelic womb - like stepping into my mind.

To begin my process, I draw inspiration from plant life that I have encountered on my travels - visits to natural spaces like gardens and trails.  Since I’m often unphased by exterior noise, I really feel that I can listen to plants and capture some essence of them in my drawings.  These drawings then serve as the foundation for my screen- printable stencils, which I use to create repetitive patterns in my artwork. I then layer on colors through water-based painting, building up the surfaces of my pieces intuitively.

In addition, because of my hearing loss, my paintings take on an emotional amplification, overtly expressing feelings and gestures.  These pieces are usually narrative of my personal experience, and also use elements of the natural world, seeking to represent interconnectedness.  Colors are also amplified, as my visual world provides so much sensation and information. 

As an artist, I am interested in using my work and honest experience as a hard-of-hearing artist to highlight the connections that exist within and among each other and the natural world.

Laurie Shapiro is an installation artist and painter based in Los Angeles, California. She was born in Long Island, NY in 1990 and received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2012. Shapiro also studied abroad at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey in 2011.

Her immersive installations have been commissioned by various institutions including the San Diego Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Otherworld, Walter Studios, and Coffee World. Her installation, Flowers Are Not A Crime, commissioned for Weedmaps, has toured the country and appeared at Life Is Beautiful (Las Vegas, 2021), California Vibes (Long Beach, 2022), and the Governors Ball (NYC, 2022).

Shapiro has had two solo shows with Radiant Space Gallery in Los Angeles and has exhibited her work at Mars Gallery in Chicago. She has completed artist residencies at the American Academy in Rome, Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Shapiro has also been awarded Artists’ Fellowship Grant, Puffin Foundation Grant, and Center for Cultural Innovation Grant. Her paintings are in public and private collections, including the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and Bilkent University.