LAURIE SKANTZOS

Laurie Skantzos is a mixed media painter living in Kitchener, Ontario.  She studied Fine Art at University of Waterloo and since then her painting style has evolved towards deeply layered abstracts and semi-abstracts.  She incorporates a wide variety of materials and media in her work.   Japanese paper and tissues, powdered pigments, lino block printing, acrylic paint and oil sticks are some of her favorites.

Laurie’s process is fairly intuitive, at turns building up and scaling back, and usually working on several pieces at the same time.  Lately, strange urban “landscapes” have been emerging and co-existing among lush organics. A quote from The Little Prince - “what is essential is invisible to the eye” – has been rolling around the back of her mind lately and she’s been wrestling with that thought…attempting to make the invisible visible…

Artist Statement

The process of creating a painting, watching as it unfolds and seeing it as a finished product is both exciting and meditative for me.  This duality that I experience in my engagement with the work interests me in other areas as well.  Order and chaos vie for dominance; beauty gives way to decay only to emerge once again, deliberation retreats as intuition takes over.  I find that the act of painting eventually reveals to me what is really going on in my inner world even as I react with or against the outer world, searching for inspiration.

I'm interested in organic life on all levels, as well as expansion and procreation.  As I get older, I seek to break open and expand on my experiences and ideas rather than begin to shut down in complacency.  My painting in an expression of that and also an investigation.

BUOYANT ENERGY
ACRYLIC ON BIRCH PANEL
36x48"

SKIRTING THE ISSUE
ACRYLIC ON BIRCH PANEL
40x30"