Opening Reception: February 13, from 7-9pm - featuring free refreshments and live music
Laurelin Gilmore, Regrown, 2025, oil on board, 40 x 24 inches
Laurelin Gilmore’s recent body of work is deeply personal, and her fearless honesty is a key she hopes others will see as a means to unlock their own inner reflections.
Titled Migrations, these recent paintings are a direct response to her daughter’s transition into life in college and outside the home. Taking the phrase “empty nest syndrome” to heart, Gilmore incorporates significant bird imagery. Ranging from human-bird hybrids derived from her photographs of various fauna, to more poetic expressions of her husband’s hands in bird form, the many explorations of avian figures lends the series potency in capturing the mass migration of a whole flock. She is keen to highlight the realities of the world, capturing how the urge to leave for survival is instinctual and necessary for countless other animals on this planet. She sees humans as no different, acknowledging the drive to seek safety and opportunity to thrive.
The Hoh Rainforest within Olympic National Park served as the primary visual source of inspiration in this newest series. As Gilmore describes, it is an environment lush with moss, ferns, lichens, and evergreen trees. Yet this pervasive greenery grows in a denseness that Gilmore interprets as prohibitive to a human presence. This forest is known for its isolation, and it has been deemed the single most quiet location in the United States - almost entirely free from human noise pollution. Yet, her fantastical creatures, many of whom are modeled directly after her daughter, find their space to thrive in this overgrown vegetation.
As is her hallmark, in Migration, Gilmore fearlessly delves into the realm of the unknown, inventing creatures who defy the limitations. She offers viewers opportunity for connection and self-reflection, while giving herself the chance to express her own optimistic hopes on canvas. In celebrating her family and the natural world, she expresses the deepest truths that resonate across culture and time.
