A friend once told me that if I want my work to change, then I should change my life. I think about this often, as it correlates to how I practice art through lived experience and experimentation. I read Walden Two by Skinner before I read Walden by Thoreau. Both of these novels have had a profound influence on my life and work. Skinner introduced me to the notion that human behavior can be shaped through environmental variables, while Thoreau practiced simple living and self-reliance through total immersion in nature as an attempt to better understand society. These ideas have come to inform my art practice and daily life. Skinner encourages me to approach life as experimentation and urges me to think about constructed realities and utopian living. I try to apply this thought to my daily practice, attempting to blur the line between life and art. Thoreau encourages me to be present and to see more objectively, reminding me that art and nature are one in the same. 

My work explores the human condition through various mediums, with emphasis in photography. I am interested in the duality of human nature - internal/external - and the notion of occupying a liminal space. Influenced by existential thought and psychology, my practice is deeply rooted in the desire to better understand what it means to be human. I often use my own body to document performative actions that respond to the immediate environment and examine how one occupies space. More recently, I have integrated weaving and sewing into my practice. These new processes have allowed me to push the work in new and exciting ways.

Laura DeAngelis is an interdisciplinary artist with an emphasis in photography. She holds a B.A. in Art from the University of Nevada in 2006 and an M.A. in Studio Art at California State University of Sacramento in 2012. Her work has been exhibited in San Francisco, Sacramento and in the Bay Area. She currently lives and works in Boulder Creek, California. 

UPCOMING EVENTS

Dressing Modern Workshop August 7-9 at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada. Register today!