Cool Shades Painting

Laura Clay is a Mexican-American abstract artist, having lived both in the United States and Mexico throughout her life. With this constant travel, she has had the opportunity to encounter and embrace many different lifestyles, contradictory beliefs and artistic influences. Laura Clay states that Mexico has given her tradition, history, and passion. The United States has provided structure, technique, and personal ambition. From Mexico, she has come to value community and family, from the United States, self-reliance. She has never felt the need to make a choice between cultures, she has learned to embrace the plurality of perspectives and this plurality colors all her aspirations and goals, especially those that relate to her art. It is her desire to integrate in her paintings these personal contradictory and complimentary expressions. As with her Mexican-American heritage, she does not seek to resolve these issues in her paintings, on the contrary, to paint her multiplicity of truths. Travel and the pursuit for creation have been constants in her life. She has "translated" these travels and studies into large-scale canvas paintings, with an abstract focus on color and movement as well as small detailed ink drawings. As an artist it is her goal to not only discover a better "interpretation" for her artistic expression, but develop her own unique artistic language.