ARTIST STATEMENT
I make sculptures with handmade paper and a large variety of other materials. With these sculptures I try to access something beyond our concrete world and to find meaning and comfort through doing so. For me, paper is the ideal medium to explore these ideas. Paper itself is complex. It is light, responds to movement and appears fragile. As a paper sculptor, I know that it is also pliable, absorbs color beautifully, and is very strong. Abaca, the fiber I use most often, shrinks as it dries, adding the element of chance to all my work. I also enjoy the process of papermaking because of my love of water, for its beauty, sensuality and for its healing qualities. Incorporating other materials – bicycle tires, aluminum cans, dyed fishing line, found objects – adds an unexpected vibrancy to the handmade paper. Working with multiples is a strong component of my work. It is both a metaphor and a strategy. Multiples, especially those with variations, point to the simple yet complicated nature of just about everything. As an artistic strategy, they offer an opportunity for experimentation within a structure, for stillness with many variations. As a visual strategy, they calm a busy eye, with each object informing the others. I often suspend these multiples from the ceiling on fine line. Their movement in response to the movement in the air means that the display itself is impermanent, that it also has many variations.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Laurie LeBreton is a sculptor who uses a wide variety of materials – handmade paper, bike tires, and aluminum cans, among them – to access life beyond our concrete world. She has exhibited widely, in the Chicago area, nationally and internationally, including solo exhibits at the Epiphany Center for the Arts, Chicago, Illinois: Evanston Art Center, Evanston, Illinois; the Quad Cities Airport, Moline, Iowa; the Orland Park Library, Orland Park, Illinois and the University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. LeBreton works and lives in Chicago, Illinois. She received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College, Chicago in 2010. She is a past participant in the Center Program at the Hyde Park Art Center.
© Laura LeBreton