About Laura Fisher


Artist Statement

For over twenty years I created beautiful gardens and textiles.  In 2003 my life was forever changed by a great personal loss. Through my grief, I realized the sacred beauty in life is often intermingled with the pain. I began to study Kabbalah and sought out spiritual teachers who might expose me to a glimmer of what lies beyond. The greatest difficulty for me was to remain planted on this earth, in touch with the physicality of life, and still be able to stretch across that chasm of understanding between this world and the next. Thus began my studies of figurative drawing and oil painting. I soon became deeply interested in the faces of people who used ritual to travel between the worlds, such as Aborigines and Butoh dancers. My compassion for people who had survived hardship in this life, like Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, made me feel compelled to paint the strength and beauty I could find within their pain. I read about and traveled to view mummification of ancient peoples, especially of the Tarim Basin, to understand how cultures have revered and preserved the lives of those they cherished.

Initially my paintings were made with a palette knife, impasto painted with a scratched and gouged surface, written words surrounding the canvas. Lately I have become intrigued with a more transient figure—ghosted, seeming to be returning from some other place.

My work continues to be an exploration through the sequence of existence as it imprints upon the soul and the faces of those persons involved in spiritual ceremonies as an integral part of their existence. I am in awe with how Life, Death and Rebirth remain the mysteries bridging humankind, through every culture from the ancients to contemporary times. My paintings are inspired by these cultural ritualistic passages and are meant to touch the inner core of those who view them.