ABOUT LAURA

Laura Chassaigne holds a Bachelor’s degree from McGill University in Art History and Archaeological Anthropology. She attained a Master’s degree in Interpretive Art and Archaeology at University College London, England, examining the concepts of gender and biological sex in Upper Paleolithic art, and later researched the meaning of mark making on French Upper Paleolithic objects. Chassaigne lives and works in Boston, MA, and has a studio space in the SOWA Art and Design District. Her work has been included in exhibitions at several galleries, and was recently juried into the Cambridge Art Association’s Emerging Artists Exhibit and the Fay Chandler Awards at Boston City Hall. She was selected by the NYC Crit Club for the 2024 Canopy program. Her work can be found in private collections in the United States and France.

Artist statement

Painting is my medium but it’s also my anchor. It helps me situate myself, painting from my own life as a way to process the intense intimacy of motherhood and grapple with the need for human connection within a broader world. My recent paintings of my children are an expression of my love, attention, and tenderness, while other works explore the ambiguity and restrictions of this role, the complexities of marriage, and the longing for my past selves. This more ambiguous terrain reflects attempts to reclaim a sense of safety and sure-footedness in an unsafe and constantly shifting environment. My recent interest in self-portraiture reinforces the subjective and personal aspects of these desires, and along with the trace of my brushstrokes, is a way to say “I was here.”

After many years studying archaeology, the embodied human experience of a place feels like a thread across time, a shared sense of relating to the world and to each other. The thrill of unearthing an artifact last touched by a human hand 40,000 years ago, the excitement of exploring a dark cave containing traces of fingers and engravings of animals long gone, illustrates the layering of human stories underneath my own. In a similar way, I build layers of acrylic paint on the canvas, drawing from reference photos, memory, and my own imagination. In my painting practice I perceive the spaces and objects in my life as they relate to the lives lived in and around them.

I am influenced by the long tradition of landscape painters, in particular the Post-Impressionists, who used the familiar forms of landscape, figure, and domestic scenes to express their own inner world. By translating thought into material, I see my paintings as artifacts of my own way of being in the world, helping me navigate a series of irreconcilable tensions. Loose brushstrokes precisely conveying a subject. Luminous color expressing veiled emotions. Intimate moments captured within a vast and unknowable universe.