Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Luna.
Lauren, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Being an artist, is all I’ve ever wanted to do. Some of my earliest memories were of making sculptures from the clay my mother would dig out of the ground in her garden in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. When I was nine she passed, and I coped with the loss by drawing pictures of where I felt she was amongst the angels. Art became my everything. By the fifth grade I knew that being an artist was what I wanted to be when I grew up. My father, as distant as he was, still fostered that part, enrolling me into art camps and classes. I won scholarship after scholarship, eventually graduating with a Bachelors of Fine Arts.
I moved to New York City, shortly after graduation in an attempt to make it big. Being a freshly hatched adult from a small town, in the big city, I quickly got overwhelmed and distracted from my goal. I became a Special Education teacher, and a mother. Once I finished my Master’s program, my son and I moved back to Columbus, Ohio, where I continued teaching. Reuniting with old friends, I got my bearings and was introduced into the art scene there. My artistic flame was reignited and I started into my second Master’s program, this time in Fine Arts. In 2011, we moved again to Houston, Texas, where the economy crash hadn’t been felt, and where it was affordable to live. Being the new kid on the block, I had to rebuild the reputation I’d built in my hometown.
After almost seven years, I am proud to say that I have achieved my goal. As a middle school art teacher, and as an actively producing and showing artist, I am a professional artist. My work is hanging in City Hall; I participate in Bayou City Art Festival; and soon I will be painting a mural for KHOU’s new satellite station at George R. Brown Convention Center. It’s taken some time, but hard work and dedication will win every time.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Though I am classically trained, and can pretty much anything, I like to paint cities. I feel as though there is energy felt within cities, and I love to capture that on canvas. Houston is what I am most known for, painting the ingredients that make the city ours. I also paint New Orleans; the jazz and energy that’s felt within the oldest port city in the United States.
I use oil paint and it is applied using a palette knife. I like the challenge of attempting to get the detail from the photographs I use translated on to canvas with the knife. Of course, photorealism is impossible this way, so the paintings are slightly abstracted, almost in a post-impressionistic format like Van Gogh.
What responsibility, if any, do you think artists have to use their art to help alleviate problems faced by others? Has your art been affected by issues you’ve concerned about?
The role of artists has never changed. We document the present. Whether it be political art or cityscapes, artists capture what is around us.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.artistaluna.com
- Phone: 832-713-7217
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/laurenlunaltd
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/laurenlunaltd
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/laurenlunaltd
Image Credit:
Lauren Luna
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