In 2014 I had brain surgery to remove a tumor that was pressing on my optic nerve. After it was removed, I experienced color differently in an intensive form.

It was a true breakthrough in my emotional perception of the act of making art.

That’s when I started painting. 

In this new body of work I’m thinking about Queer Utopias, subverting a heteronormative status quo dreaming of joyful futuristic spaces full of possibility. I use my identity as a queer feminist artist to examine the tension between material/emotion, and language/memory as I cut up old paintings and reconfigure them into something new. Mixing and experimenting with different materials, such as spray paint, bleach and safety pins, in addition to the inclusion of text and drawing allows for a tension and spontaneity in how they react to one another; a push-pull in exploring the visceral in the painterly. 

Queer Utopia draws upon influences of the Riot Grrrl movement, Miranda July, Pussy Riot, Queen Bees, and Dyke culture. Ideas of deconstruction, transformation, and raw emotion ruminate throughout this series. A reimagination of construction, pairing older and newer pieces, sometimes attaching with safety pins references the performative and punk influence of disrupting the norm. Ideas of feminism, performance, adolescence, and identity circulate throughout as I dream of futuristic queer utopias.

Lauren Packard is a queer abstract mixed media artist living in Brooklyn. After undergoing brain surgery in 2014, she turned to paint to express what words couldn’t. Lauren considers her work an extension of her inner thoughts and dialogue, both conscious and subconscious. Lauren’s work explores and abstracts ideas and memories of queer identity, domesticity, repair, and dissonance through the use of materials and intuitive marks.