“Making the painting is a mysterious and compulsive search for an emotional reality.” – Laurie Fader

Abstract art is a loaded phrase, words that conjure as much misunderstanding as mystery. In the simplest terms, perhaps the best thing we can say is that abstraction is universal - artists tapping into the subconscious to elicit emotional reactions and develop visual relationships through elements of color, shape, and texture. The same equation is typically at work in representational art, but with those elements fashioned within the familiar.

"Big Toe" by Laurie Fader, oil, 48x42in, 2017, $3200 — "Big Toe" by Laurie Fader, oil, 48x42in, 2017, $3200

“Unconscious, subversive preoccupations are the driving force behind my paintings,” is how Laurie Fader puts it, “stabilized and excavated through the use of light and woven shapes of color. Making the painting is a mysterious and compulsive search for an emotional reality. Visual touchstones reveal complex psychological and intellectual states, contained within fragile, blistered and bubbled boundaries. It has become a metaphor for our political landscape as well, polarized and charged with dichotomies.”

"Plumage" by Laurie Fader, oil, mixed media on paper, 19x15in, 2017, $2200 — "Plumage" by Laurie Fader, oil, mixed media on paper, 19x15in, 2017, $2200

Fader came to the abstract. Like so many artists, after years of representational work: “Freed from the perimeters of painting the landscape on site, which caught my interest for twenty years, now color can lead in a way it could not before. And with color comes delight in a different sort of visual and emotional journey.”

Fader is Associate Professor and Chair of Academic Affairs at Kentucky College of Art + Design at Spalding University, where she teaches Drawing II, Color and Design, Color and Design II, and Painting II. Since joining the faculty in 2010, she co-authored the BFA program before becoming Chair in 2011. In addition, she organized a Study Abroad Program and took 3 students to Umbria, Italy.

Earlier this year she finished an Artist’s Residency at Scuola Grafica in Venice, Italy.

Laurie Fader will be participating in the 2017 Open Studio Weekend, sponsored by Louisville Visual Art and University of Louisville’s Hite Art Institute. Her studio, located in the Germantown neighborhood, will be open the weekend of November 4 and 5. Tickets for Open Studio Weekend will go on sale October 16. Click here for more information.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Age: 60
Education: BS, Honors, New York University, NYC; MFA, Painting, Yale School of Art.
Website: lauriefader@squarespace.com