wildflowers II Print

Laura Chapman is a contemporary abstract painter who lives and works in rural West Virginia. After she received a Congress-Bundestag scholarship in 1983, she spent her junior year of high school in Berlin, Germany, and it was there that she began to develop an appreciation for modern art. The city was full of public art and galleries, and even parts of the Wall were covered with beautiful graffiti, some of it by famous artists. Although she had won awards at art shows throughout her secondary education, it was this year in Berlin that ultimately led her to choose German as a major in college. She earned her B.A. from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL, and then later attended West Virginia University where she taught German and received her M.A. in Foreign Languages (German). In between the two degrees there were four years of living, studying, and working in Freiburg, Germany, and travelling in Europe as much as she could. She believes these years still inform the style of her work. A middle school art teacher once told her to "paint what you know," and she has followed this advice by most often developing themes inspired by the natural world around her. She adds that her intention is to marry her appreciation for modern art that she acquired long ago to her love of the countryside in West Virginia. When asked about the style of her work she says: "I strive to create a unique interpretation of my subject matter by deconstructing and then depicting it in a stylized way that emphasizes certain patterns and forms." For her textural works, she adds layer after layer of acrylic color, sometimes waiting between coats, sometimes working while the paint is still wet. "I want to achieve a rough, not overworked, appearance that still conveys the idea I'm trying to express. I will leave only 'suggestions' of a component if I like the uncompleted lines or color fields because that is more important to me than fidelity to the represented object. In fact, if I've succeeded, the painting as a whole could also be interpreted as a mosaic or collage." Some of her work, however, is non-representational and is meant to simply extol the beauty of favorite colors, shapes, and color combinations. Laura Chapman is a juried member of the David L. Dickirson Fine Arts Gallery at Tamarack in Beckley, WV and Allied Artists of West Virginia and shows her work regularly at juried exhibitions at Tamarack.