Laurel Garcia Colvin

Artist Statement

In the practice of my art I explore what it is to be a human in this world, both individually and collectively.  I am interested in how the human psyche perceives and constructs reality, subjective experiences, illusion and disillusion.   I render narrative figurative images, often in a fragmented way, to evoke emotional, psychological, or spiritual states and suggest human vulnerability when facing the discrepancy between desires and reality. 


My works juxtapose the idealistic narratives of societal dreams from the past with the contradictions, changes and complexities of contemporary life. Silhouettes, detailed renderings of figures, and the overlay of fragmented, invasive, nature-based patterns or images create visual commentaries with undertones of foreboding, wanting and dismay.  My works delve into the complex world of reality and fantasy.  Their visual irony compel the viewer to reflect on and reconsider the relationship between what remains, what is scrapped and what is made new in society’s collective consciousness.

Biographical Information

Laurel Garcia Colvin’s artwork has been exhibited in several New York City galleries and galleries in Barcelona, Spain, Dublin, Ireland, Chicago, Texas, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. Her works are in private and corporate collections in England, Ireland, Brazil, New York, California, Connecticut, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Texas,including the private collections of Jacqueline Adler Walker and Arthur W. Walker, Doreen and Gilbert Bassin, Judith and Stanley Zabar, Helen Stambler Neuberger and Jim Neuberger, Livia and Marc Straus, Sara M. Vance Waddell and Michelle Waddell, and Lawrence B. Benenson, and the corporate collections of Logos Consulting Group (NYC) and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (Purchase, NY).

She received her MFA and BFA with highest honors from the University of Texas at Austin, and did post-graduate studies at Pratt Institute. Ms. Garcia Colvin was on the faculty in the Art Department of the University of Texas in Austin for many years where she taught drawing and art education before moving to New York City in 1986. She worked for many years in the Education Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art before devoting herself full-time to her art.  She served on the boards of the Neuberger Museum of Art and Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art.