“Ripening Shadows”, 2023, Colored pencil on toned paper
It was great to see Lauren Mann’s drawings again, this time at Art Center Sarasota for her exhibition The Ephemerality of Being. Her work was previously part of 2022’s emerging artist exhibition Fresh Squeezed 6 at Morean Arts Center, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The artist’s statement about the show-
Growing up and getting older is seeing time pass and recognizing you can’t do anything but try to take in every moment. It’s exhausting. It’s taking a deep labored breath and deciding to rest in the peaceful aftermath of the realization that your time on earth is finite.
This work combines delicate portraiture with the rich symbolism of inanimate objects to create new, contemporary still lives. Bright, sanguine memento moris. By carefully veiling these reminders of humanity’s brittle ephemerality behind the facade of beautiful and nuanced illustrations of ordinary characteristics and relationships found in everyday life, it compels the viewer to reflect on their own lived experiences and feelings towards mortality, comparatively to those conveyed in these works.
This exhibition closes 9/30/23.