Laurie Steen

Laurie Steen is a Canadian Artist whose work focuses primarily on drawing. Heavily influenced by the natural environment in and around her home in Devon, her detailed drawings function to her as portraiture of the landscape and meditations on the ever-changing surroundings of the English countryside.

Of her work, Laurie says,

I have been drawing shadows in my garden since I was a teenager. I think this was perhaps the beginning of my need to make. Looking back it was about capturing the fleeting nature of trees, positive and negative shapes and forms in the landscape. I believe it helped me understand the need to focus less on the recognition of an image and allow the energy and spontaneity of process to become celebrated. It is the environment in which I live that continues to be my constant source of inspiration.

Laurie studied Fine Art at the University of Calgary, before completing her B.I.D. at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture. She has been exhibiting her work for over 25 years internationally and continues to exhibit throughout the U.K., Canada and Switzerland. She often collaborates with artists on interdisciplinary, performance and design based projects which continue to inform her practice.

Laurie’s work is represented in numerous private and corporate collections. In 2015 she was elected an academician of the RWA. Some recent group exhibitions include the 2017/18 Jerwood Drawing Prize, the 2018 and 2019 RA Summer exhibition, as well as every biannual DRAWN exhibition with the RWA.

‘I enjoy focusing on what isn’t there, the unsolved empty space and the power of the negative. There is an anticipation of what could be; an openness, and great newness that is just around the corner. I am continually readdressing my connection to the landscape and the emotion of newness it instils in me.’ She goes on, ‘my work has always felt full of paradoxes sitting happily beside each other. From lightness and darkness, emptiness and openness, to finding the extraordinary within the ordinary. I am continually intrigued by the pull of negative space and more specifically how light shapes us and gets through the shadows. In a discussion concerning nature and architecture, Architect Louis Kahn refers to the darkness of shadows, as silence, “…Silence is not very, very quiet. It is something which you may say is lightless, ‘darkless’. 

This idea seems to play out quite literally in the vignettes of roads and nearby fields. I feel this when ever I am rendering the architecture of nature; there is always light to be found in the dark and there is a fondness and a knowing when revisiting familiar places. It all feels very personal. The hedge shadows are permanently changing yet imprinted into the landscape and are unforgettable.

There is a fondness and a knowing when revisiting familiar places and a comfort in walking these small lanes. It all feels very personal. I draw places that are familiar, and places that fill me with anticipation to explore or surprise me most unusually with the change in lighting or time of day. There is newness in everything; even places close to home. I would like to make visible a ‘humanness’ I see and feel in the landscape by rendering it. But mostly to show that it has been remembered. ‘

Solo Exhibitions

2023  New Paintings, Beaux Arts Bath

2019   ‘the space of nothing and everything’, Cube Gallery, London

2012   TREES, Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, (CCANW) Haldon, Exeter

2010   EINZIGARTIG, Halde Galerie, Widen, Switzerland

2009   ‘small Drawings and Paintings’, Artfirm Gallery, Calgary Alberta, Canada

2007   MEMORY OF GREEN, Artfirm Gallery, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

2002  “abstrAKT”. Halde Galerie,   Solo drawing & painting exhibition with sculptor Evelyne Brader-Frank.  Widen, Switzerland

2001   ‘The Poetry of Us…  finding my own figuration’.  Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art., Calgary, Canada.

1997    ‘a continuation of works,’.  Wallace Galleries Ltd., Calgary Alberta, Canada.
‘for the love of Scarlet’  McIntyre Bills Corp. Studio. Calgary, Alberta

1995   ‘The Living Sketch, a moment within nature”,  808 Studio – Alberta Hotel Bldg. Calgary, AB.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2020/21  

North. South. East. West, Beaux Arts Bath
International Womens Day Group Exhibition 2021, Wallace Gallery, Calgary Canada
Wells Art Contemporary 2020, UK, Virtual Exhibition
RWA 168, Autumn/ Spring Exhibition, RWA, Bristol, UK

2019

RA 251 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, London
‘Emerging Landscapes: A New Normality’, RWA, Bristol, UK
RWA Autumn Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
London Art Fair, Cube Gallery, London

2018

RWA Autumn Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
RA 250th Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, London,
‘All Women’s Group Exhibition’, Wallace Gallery, Calgary, Canada

2017

The Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space, London (upcoming Sept. 17)
Works on Paper, Cube Gallery, London (upcoming Sept. 17)
Drawings from the RWA Collection, The RWA, Bristol, England
Summer Group Exhibition, Wallace Gallery, Canada
Tree Life, Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth, UK
DRAWN, The Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, England

2016

Small is Beautiful, CUBE Gallery, Marylebone, London, UK
RWA at the ATKINSON, Acadamicians elected over the last 5 years, Atkinson Gallery/ Atkinson Arts Projects, Millfield, Street, Somerset.
164 AUTUMN EXHIBITION, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.

2015

163 AUTUMN EXHIBITION, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
WALKING INTO MEMORY, Penzance, Cornwall. (https://walkingintomemory.wordpress.com/press-release/)
DRAWN, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK.
SMALL THINGS MATTER, Badcocks Gallery, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance, Cornwall

2014

162 AUTUMN EXHIBITION, Royal West of England Academy (Academician Candidate). Bristol, UK       THE AFFORDABLE  ART FAIR, w/ Badcocks Gallery, Battersea, London, England.

2013

ITS ALL WHITE, Coombe Farm Gallery, Dartmouth, England
161 AUTUMN EXHIBITION,  The RWA, Bristol, England
POSTCARDS FOR SHELTERBOX, Badcocks Gallery, Tremenheere Gardens, Cornwall, Devon
THE AFFORDABLE  ART FAIR, w/ Badcocks Gallery, Battersea, London, England.
DRAWN, The RWA (Royal West of England Academy), Bristol, England

2012 

LYNN PAINTER STAINERS EXHIBITION, Mall Galleries, London, England
‘THE AFFORDABLE ART FAIR’, Autumn Collection, w/ Badcocks Gallery, London
MY FAVOURITE TREE EXHIBITION, CCANW, Haldon Forest, Nr. Exeter, England

2011 

ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London
‘THE AFFORDABLE ART FAIR’, Autumn Collection, London
159 AUTUMN EXHIBITION, The RWA, Bristol, England
NEW BEGINNINGS,  Badcocks Gallery, Penzance, Cornwall, England
THE ART GALLERY OF CALGARY, Masterpiece Contemporary Show. Calgary, Canada

2010
Badcocks, Christmas Group Show.  Newlyn, Cornwall.
Bow Valley College ‘Celebration of Art’ (Showing works from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Collection.) Calgary, Canada
158 AUTUMN EXHIBITION, The Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (winner of the Prize for Drawing)
THE AFFORDABLE ART FAIR, Spring Collection 2010, London,

2009
157 AUTUMN EXHIBITION’, The Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, England
TACO (Torre Abbey Contemporary Open’) Torre Abbey, Torquay,  Devon.
THE AFFORDABLE ART FAIR, Spring Collection 2009, w/ Bowlish Cont. Gallery, London, England
‘A walk at Fursdon’ , Fursdon, Devon, England
FasziNATUR,  Halde galerie, Widen, Switzerland.
VISAGE Portrait Exhibition, Artfirm Gallery, Calgary, Canada
THE EDGE GALLERY, show with Geoffrey Hunter

2008 
156 AUTUMN EXHIBITION, The Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, England.
STUDIO ALBERTA, (2 part exhibition) Opening at Wolstenholme Projects, Liverpool, England;  travelling to  Artfirm Gallery, Canada. SUMMERTIDE, New work by gallery artists, ArtFirm Gallery, Calgary, AB.

2007 
A SEASONABLE SALON, Group Show, ArtFirm Gallery, Calgary, AB.
SUMMERTIDE, Group Show, ArtFirm Gallery, Calgary, AB.
Landscape x9,  Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art, Calgary, AB.

2006 
“BODY OF 3”  Interdisciplinary Performance piece with Dance Music and Visual Arts,
The Grand Theater. Calgary, Alberta. Produced by Groundwork’s Integrated Arts Collective. Calgary, AB.