Lauren Evans

To avoid, escape evade or dodge, the work investigates this very activity of sidestepping over the strange or uncomfortable.  I am interested in our psychological makeup and how we often walk on eggshells when it comes to our own vulnerabilities.

The series is made up of archetypal figures with mousetraps for bodies balancing precariously within and around steel structures creating a tension that plays with our collective unconscious actions. The drawings are mixed media with enamel and oil pastel, referencing the marks from childhood and the negative space between the sculptural forms.

The work is based of the idea of cards, playing cards, business cards, identification cards and the like. Working with the idea of relationships and identity. How we come to know our own identity in the face of the multitude of relationships we encounter. Who are the people we meet and how or why do these particular people come into our lives. Have we known them before, is it all by accident, or by fate. How do we play the cards or relationships we are dealt and what are the meanings, metaphors and insights into these cards and how we play them? Do we take risks, find clues, hold on to them, or let them go. Do we see ourselves in them, do we change who we are by the presence of certain people?

The installation consists of a series of ceramic and mixed media sculptures exploring the journey within, meditating on the conscious and subconscious self through animal mythology. The work is inspired by the mystery of the Kongo Power Figures from the 19th century; replacing the human form with that of a cormorant. A unique coastal bird, I have found to be an intriguing metaphor often mislabeled.  

The work examines the challenges and turmoil that everyone faces throughout life, using visual metaphors for awkwardness, uneasiness, or instability. The series include a series of mixed media sculptures utilizing found objects including toy rhinos precariously perched on top of vertical towers composed of mousetraps or trapped in a slinky. This sets up a humorous uneasy sense to the work as well. The rhinoceros is an interesting metaphor because the animal itself provokes a sense of endangerment yet powerful strength.

I am interested in the psychological push and pull that we deal with in our lives and of that strenuous personal growth that we all struggle with. A focal point has been that of mental illness, not only the diseases themselves but also the people inflicted with them. The fact is mental illness does not discriminate it affects all races, social economical backgrounds, men and women, young and old.

The images I use in the work are metaphors that depict mental illness, labeling, control and how society and science perpetuates these stigmas and isolation 

The series Rhino Ideologies addresses the psychological push and pull that we deal with in our lives and of that strenuous personal growth that we all struggle with. The images I have used are metaphors that depict childhood, labeling, control psychological distress and how society and science perpetuates the stigmas and isolation associated with the people who suffer. 

The images of the rhinoceros, represent the adversary and ally we hold inside our own consciousness. The rhinoceros is an interesting metaphor because the animal itself provokes a sense of endangerment yet powerful strength. These extreme opposites in the work of old/young, good/ bad, weak/strong, extreme joy and paralyzing turmoil come forward in the images of the rhinoceros and the text.

The rhinoceros is a metaphor for the frightening, inner turmoil, residing inside each of us, that place where we do not want to go. It is the inner being-a powerful, prehistoric animal that despite its strength is a fragile, vulnerable, endangered creature.

Gluing over 1000 ping-pong balls to an eight-foot rhino relief creates a feeling of anxious activity as well as therapeutic repetition. I use imagery from childhood to capture and bring about some of this inner being. The rhino is passion and passivity. The rhino is ugliness and beauty. Each person’s rhino is universal and unique.

The series addresses issues of control, vulnerability, cognition, and labeling.

This video was created during the summer of 2020, 5 month since the lockdown of the Coronavirus pandemic. It reflects the frustration on how political officials responded to this public health crisis.

The Greater Honey Guide

In my work, seeking becomes both a map and a maze. The Greater Honey Guide series drawsfrom the unusual relationship between the Greater Honey Guide bird and humans. The bird guides people toward honey, responding to a human call and leading them toward a source of nourishment. I use this relationship as a metaphor for seeking guidance while moving through grief and loss.

The path, however, is rarely straightforward. Some obstacles come from the outside; others are carried within us. In my mixed-media ceramic sculptures, toys and game pieces become obstacles to the honeyguide, transforming familiar objects associated with childhood comfort into barriers. Play becomes entangled with the things we carry with us. 

Alongside the sculptures, mixed-media drawings are made on honeycomb-shaped panels incorporating clock elements, most with only one working hand. These clocks reflect the disorienting experience of time in grief, when time can stretch, stall, or lose its familiar structure.

Whimsy and humor run alongside the grief. Found objects create an uneasy space between play and loss, comfort and obstruction, guidance and uncertainty. The Greater Honey Guide series considers what we seek, what gets in our way, and what we carry with us as we try to find a way through.