Laurie Levey

Laurie Lifland Levey grew up in West Orange, NJ, where she discovered her artistic strength in a family struggling to cope with a variety of losses and adjustments. Laurie lost her mother to cancer at age five. Two years later her father remarried and she became part of a blended family. In the years that followed, Laurie used her art as a navigational tool to create order in her world. Over the years, her painting interests have changed. One of her favorite artists is Georgia O’keefe whose influence is very apparent in Laurie’s first paintings. As Laurie’s interests moved toward abstract expressionism, she began to transform objects, stretching their boundaries. She worked on a series of abstractions based on a piece of sea coral. From there she transitioned into paintings of a more realistic nature pulling out elements from her abstractions and integrating them into her work. When these elements of tubes and vessels would not go away she turned to still life painting classes to temper her imagination and create a focus. Currently, Laurie is working on a series of paintings showing how man-made objects harmonize amid the hardiness of nature, as they exist comfortably together. She is intrigued by the weathered mailboxes that wear with age and environmental elements in the midst of nature’s seasonal beauty and the resurgence along the road’s edge. The mailboxes have evolved into layers of interpretations based on Laurie’s own personal journey and her need to make sense of what she is experiencing in her life.