Laurel Shute

My painting and printmaking, and earlier outdoor sculptures, and collaborative artworks all have an animated quality inspired by light and color in natural environments.  Some of the symbolic titles of my works suggest moments of communion with nature: Faces of Water, Moods of the Land and Sky, Outside is Radiant, Sun Sensory, Eyes of the Forest, and The Moon is Here. I work with a sense of wonderment about the meaning of color that appears in the Earth’s atmosphere, aka, tropospheric (a scientific term for where we live on Earth.) Thinking about the troposphere reminds me just how amazing is our colorful environment.  Everyone has experienced a sunset when the drama of colors influences our emotions.

Color and sunlight in the troposphere are the source of my intuitive art exploration. In my painting process, I’m inquiring into what it is that I can observe and perceive in regards to my relationship to color and space in nature.

• MFA Painting, Graduate Fellowship, CW Post, LIU, Brookville, NY
• BFA Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, LA, CA
• Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Art, Fine Art, Richmond, VA

I teach art workshops to all age groups, including painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, and printmaking.  In addition to having taught programs for NYC public schools, I continue to collaborate with public art events and teach through museums, community colleges, and senior center programs. I'm presently exhibiting my art and teaching art workshops celebrating community ties, love of nature, and nurturing artistic growth with expressive collages, paintings, prints, and drawings.  Here is some of what I’m doing this Fall ‘22:

• An event for all ages, Serious Fun art workshop with ArtsWestchester.  Fun art about nature-inspired imaginative colorful collages made with wood and cut-out shapes.
• Adult Painting and Drawing, evening art studio, at Peekskill, Westchester Community College.  Plein Air Painting on the weekends, painting in the parks!
• Youth art courses in painting and drawing, focused on expressions of community and sharing ideas about the world around us while exploring artworks at the Brooklyn Museum. 
• Printmaking inspired by sketchbook drawings, suminagashi marbling effects, and collage in an Adult evening workshop at Garrison Art Center.
• Also, if you are in the area, an exhibition of my paintings and prints is at Gallery Gaia, 79 Hudson Ave, Brooklyn.  Hours on weekends in November.