LAARA WILLIAMSEN - Canada

CONTACTS: laara63@gmail.com Website: https://www.laarawilliamsen.com

Ripples

Interlude C

oil on canvas 40 x 30 inch

acrylic on paper 28 x 22 inch

Laguz

Wild Summer garden

Water oil on canvas 24 x 32 inch

acrylic on canvas 20 x 16 inch

Dragon mountain

acrylic on canvas cm 34.5 x 29

Elements- fire

acrylic on canvas cm 45.72 x 91.44

About His Art

Laara WilliamSen,

International Professional Painter,

Vancouver, B.C. Canada

Laara WilliamSen has been painting and drawing since age 3. Growing up in the Lower Fraser Valley, B.C., Canada, she was immersed in the seasons and surrounded by a large extended family and a supportive rural community where she received much encouragement to continue her drawings as a child. At age 19, she was fortunate to study with the international artist, Robert E. Wood in both his New Westminster and North Vancouver, B.C. studios where he taught her the basics of oil painting.

During her twenties, she painted as many as six paintings a day, one on top of another, on cardboard in her garage studio. Often, she painted nature from memory.

At this time, she also began to sell her paintings from her home studio through personal referrals.

WilliamSen attended Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C. Canada and graduated in 1988 with a four-year major in Interdisciplinary Studies. She has been deeply influenced by the artworks of W. Kandinsky, Georgia O'Keefe, Frieda Kahlo, Emily Carr and the works of the Impressionists and Fauve artists. The city and street people inspire her to paint, as do the forest, ocean and stars. She is fascinated by our responses to the infinite cycles within both nature and human nature. Colour and texture are important to her. In the end, although she creates the painting, she believes that once completed the painting has a life of its own.

WilliamSen has received nine international awards, most notably, the Top Ten Painting Award in 1989 in the International Artitudes Competition sponsored by Gallery 54 in SoHo, New York, N.Y., U.S.A. and curated by the Fogg Museum, the MOMA in Chicago and the Guild Hall Museum. Other awards include the PEACE PROJECT, U.S.A. selected touring international group exhibition, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Some local awards include the B.C. Cultural Fund and the B.C. Scholarship Fund in Canada. She has exhibited solo over 90 times and participated in 131 group exhibitions. Over the past few years WilliamSen has been honored to be selected to participate in twenty-six international group exhibitions. Her artworks are held in Permanent Collections at the Paul Getty III Museum, Siena, Italy, the Boston Art Library, New York, USA, and the Biuro Pronocji Kultury, Gdansk, Poland. WilliamSen’s paintings are held in private collections in Canada, the U.S.A., Mexico, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Germany, France, Thailand, China and Australia.

For further information please contact Email laara63@gmail.com

Portfolio Website https://laarawilliamsen.art

ARTIST STATEMENT – Laara WilliamSen, International professional painter

The city and street people inspire me to paint, as do the forest, ocean and stars. I am fascinated by our

responses to the infinite cycles within both nature and human nature. I am currently developing an

abstract series of paintings based on my inspiration. I create from immediate, process-based

movements. I use a paddle and my fingers when working with acrylic paints on canvas. Color and

texture are important to me in my compositions. My intention is that viewers may experience a sense of

unity and recognize or create their own stories from my artworks.

Conversation from Carl Benz Cloud University online 2015 interview with Laara WilliamSen

“I knew at age five that I was a painter; an artist. My mother asked me on my first day of Grade One Elementary School what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I told her that I was an artist. She was hoping that I would become a teacher in the provincial school system and that was not for me. I became a different sort of art teacher; a facilitator, so that I could develop my own methods of facilitation and create my own programs.

The biggest leap in my way of making marks happened during the four years that I was at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C. Attending full time and receiving the mentorship of Geoff Rees, Sylvia Scott and Susan Hillman helped me immensely to find my own art language. I experimented more than ever before. I did preliminary sketches and learned about art history. It was during these years that I began painting quickly with my fingers, and I gained a better understanding of my place as an artist in our contemporary art world. I hope that my art language will always continue to change as I continue to experience new and amazing events and sights in our world.

I love the Modern Artists from the Fauve movement and the Impressionists, as well as our own contemporary Canadian Group of Seven and women artists such as Frieda Kahlo, Georgia O’Keefe and Emily Carr. Joseph Beuys is my personal all-time favorite because of his ideals and his very committed performances.”

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