Laura
Moriarty
Born in Beacon, New York, returning exhibitor Laura Moriarty received training through an apprenticeship in hand papermaking (1986-1990), and is otherwise self-taught. Since 1992, her work has been presented in numerous exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Moriarty is thinking of the passage of time on a geological scale while echoing the processes of the earth in her studio practice. Layers of color form the strata of a methodology in which the immediacy of the hand can translate a sense of deep time. Working and reworking molten, richly pigmented beeswax, she builds each object and painting through a slow, simple, yet strenuous physical process. The 2-dimensional, encaustic monotypes are an ongoing, intentional by-project of her sculptural studio work. Using a heated metal plate to erode and shape the layered, 3-dimensional forms, she lays trails and spillways onto paper as another way of capturing time. Like thin sections in optical mineralogy, she says, the works on paper are the thinnest possible slivers of her work. This multiple-step engagement of her materials becomes for Moriarty a metaphor for the ephemerality of life and civilization.
