Picture Theory is pleased to present an exhibition by Lauren Clay, Love Feast, featuring six wall-based sculptures and an immersive wallpaper installation.
Clay ventures into the ethereal domain of dreams, constructing tangible pathways to intangible realms through the usage of oil paint, and meticulously carved panels. Drawing from Jungian dream analysis, she explores the concept of the central axis point, symbolizing a metaphysical nexus that bridges the chasm between heaven and earth, dreams and reality.
Love Feast is Clay’s enveloping and experiential dreamscape where the artist acts as a “trickster” journeying viewers between reality and illusion as she dismantles conventional constructs of space. Mutable and seemingly alive, Clay's latest work responds directly to her exploration of transitory spaces while imbuing her sculptures with a palpable sense of dynamism and anthropomorphic symmetry. Each work serves as a conduit to Clay's dreamscape, beckoning viewers to traverse the threshold into a realm where imagination takes hold.
–Evyn Bileri Banawoye
Download Press Release
Lauren Clay received her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and BFA in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Bosse & Baum, London, Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas, with site-specific installations at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; Kula Contemporary, Split, Croatia; Peter Halley’s Heterotopia, Venice, Italy; and Paradise City, Seoul, South Korea. Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, The New York Times, Art in America, Hi-Fructose Magazine, Bomb Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail. Clay was a 2019 recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and a 2020 recipient of a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. In 2022 she was a grant recipient and resident at the Roswell Artists in Residence program in Roswell, New Mexico. Her editioned artist book, Subtle Body, published by Small Editions NY, is included in the library collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Walker Art Center.