Paint Makerspace
with Laurel Sparks
PAINTING 669 001 | 3 credits | $50 Lab Fee
May 26 - June 8, 2024
This survey course provides students of all levels with the opportunity to work on their own projects and expand their painting skills. Students will have dedicated access to the painting studio and will be encouraged to experiment with various materials and techniques. Demonstrations may present techniques in acrylic or oil, sketching and planning processes, preparation of painting surfaces, and information on studio safety. The faculty will host presentations and lectures on relevant historical artists as well as contemporary painters, and students will engage in discussions, readings, screenings, and critiques with the group which illuminate painterly concerns and emphasize active decision making. Assignments are designed to build understanding of new methods, and students will conceive projects that reflect their interests. Instructors will be available to help facilitate individual, collaborative, and interdisciplinary projects and this course will culminate in a group critique.
Laurel Sparks is a Brooklyn-based painter whose work applies esoteric correspondence systems to materialize structures outside of perceptible reality. They hold an MFA from Bard College and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at Tufts University. Exhibitions include solo shows at Kate Werble gallery, NYC; Knockdown Center, Brooklyn, NY and group shows at Cheim and Read gallery, NYC; Leslie-Lohman Museum, NYC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; and DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA. Awards include a MacDowell Fellowship, Elizabeth Foundation Studio Intensive Program at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, NY, Fire Island Artist Residency, NY, Berkshire Taconic Fellowship, SMFA Alumni Traveling Fellowship and an Elaine DeKooning Fellowship. Sparks lives and works between Brooklyn and Hudson Valley, NY and teaches undergraduate and graduate painting at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In 2022/23 Sparks received a project grant to produce an immersive installation for Invisible Prairie at Tinworks Art, Bozeman Montana.
Laurel Sparks, Harvest Moon, 2023, waterbased paint, pored gesso, paper pulp, glitter, collage, torn woven canvas, 36 x 36 in.