“I have been drawing shadows of trees in my garden since I was a teenager.  I think this was perhaps the beginning of my need to make.  Looking back it was about capturing the fleeting nature of trees, positive and negative spaces, and forms in the landscape.  It helped me understand the need to focus less on the recognition of an image and allow the energy and spontaneity of process to become celebrated.  I tend to call all of my work drawings even though most of them are mixed media or oil paintings, mostly because the genesis of each piece begins and ends with drawing.

My motivation has always been my belief in drawing and the act of finding my own figuration.  The process of which is at the very centre of how I work.  Drawing to me is simply about having a love for making an image, with the image in turn feeling truer to me than the real thing.  I seek to make drawings that embrace and demonstrate a subtle stillness and movement in life, through themes exploring nature, the portrait, and the fleeting landscape.”

Raised in Millarville, Alberta.  Laurie grew up with a deep understanding of and respect for nature; specifically the relationships we as human beings have with it.  A purist in many ways, Laurie’s drawings area as emotional as they are intellectual.  “My relationship with the English landscape is very sensory, leading me to approach nature drawings as I would a portrait, where time and space enter the work in the form of layers. The trees here seem to emit a silence and light, and have an immeasurable desire to be.”

After studying fine arts at the University of Calgary, Laurie graduated with an Honours BID and thesis prize from the University of Manitoba, in the Faculty of Architecture in 1993, where she also taught sketch camps and drawing classes.  A complement to the fact that she has been drawing throughout her life and that drawing remains the genesis of her work today.  Laurie has also been involved in leading specialised adult drawing workshops with organisations like Dartmoor Arts and has also recently helped to found and run with a partner, an Art and Forest School for children during school breaks.  “Teaching and Drawing alongside artists of all ages only goes further to inspiring my own work and is something which I am very passionate about. “

In January 2015 Laurie was elected to be an Academician with the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol.  The RWA is one of 5 Royal Academies in the UK.    

Laurie has been a part of many solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Switzerland, and England including collaborating on interdisciplinary, performance, and design based projects.  During the past year Laurie has shown at the Royal West of England Academy, the London AAF, the Mall Galleries, Badcocks Gallery, and CCANW.