Laurel Bustamante’s Flowers f rom Mars

July 30 – September 3, 2016

Lora Schlesinger Gallery presents Flowers from Mars, a series of small-scaled paintings by

Laurel Bustamante. Like Persian miniatures, Bustamante’s paintings are elaborate and enticing.

Flowers from Mars combines carefully painted human-interpreted flora with otherworldly

environments. The environments are constructed with washes of gouache and acrylic paint to

create ethereal and atmospheric settings, where microscopic gardens float and flourish. Laurel

finds abstraction to be more poetic in expressing nature than realism. Researching botanical

motifs found in history is an important part of her process. By combining and contrasting highly rendered flora within atmospheric and abstract settings, she is exploring the schism in the human

brain between our delight in nature and our global inability to maintain it. Each painting develops

organically without a predetermined plan. The contrast between vaporous washes and tiny

brushwork is extreme and requires a slow, contemplative process.

Laurel Bustamante received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southern Oregon University, Summa

Cum Laude. In 2013, she was the finalist for the Portland Art Museum Contemporary Northwest

Art Awards, in Portland Oregon. She was awarded the Crater Lake National Park Artist

Residency in 2001 and the Artist on Location Project in Antilles, Netherlands in 2000.

Nightflowers (detail)

Nightflowers, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Flowers from Mars, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Flowers from Mars 2, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Utopia, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Seabed, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Beneath the Veil, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Shifting in the Blue Canal, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Drifting into the Celadon Sea, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Dusk and Dawn, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Elegy: Blue Milk and Honeythorn, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Elusive Dream of Elsewhere, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Valles Marineris, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Strange Symmetries in the Golden Undertow, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Falling Gardens, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Lost Garden No. 6, 2015 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

Exodus, 2016 acrylic and gouache on panel 10 x 8”

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2016 Flowers from Mars, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2014 The Listening Stillness, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2013 Lost Gardens, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR 2011 Nightbirds, REM Gallery, San Antonio, TX 2010 Birds, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, 0R 2009 Nocturnes in India, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2001 Connections: Laurel Engel & Eileen Bowie, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR 2000 Curaçao: To Return to the Sea, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2000 Signals from a New Order, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 1999 New Work, Thorndike Gallery, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR 1999 Heresy, Central Art Gallery, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR 1993 Lifeblood, Los Medanos Gallery, Los Medanos College, Pittsburg, CA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 Salon: Portland 2016 Biennial, The Studio Visits, Disjecta, Portland, OR 2016 Exploring Reality, Schneider Museum, Oregon Center for the Arts, Ashland, OR 2014 New Work by Gallery Artists, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR 2012 Group Exhibition: Gallery Artists, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR 2012 Summer Group Show, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2012 Smalls, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2010 Small Works, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2009 The Toy Show, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2002 Crater Lake Centennial Exhibition, Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR 2001 Abstraction 2001, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2001 Taste of Ashland, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2000 Four Ashland Artists, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2000 Southern Oregon University Alumni, Center for the Visual Arts, Ashland, OR 2000 Introductions, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 1999 Exposicion Grafica Entre Dos Paises, Sala Polivalente, University of Guanajuato, GTO, Mexico 1998 Recent Graduates ‘98, Blackfish Gallery, Portland, OR 1997 En Route, Lavern Krause Gallery, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 1995 The Mask Show, Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR 1993 Contemporary Collections on Loan, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IA 1992 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Rental Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1992 Small Paintings, Joan Roebuck Gallery, Lafayette, CA 1991 Fifth Annual Emeryville Art Exhibition, Emeryville, CA; Regina Almaguer, curator 1991 Kala Institute Annual Art Exhibition, Berkeley, CA 1989 Celebration of the Arts 1989, Emeryville, CA, Carl Worth, curator, Berkeley Art Center 1988 Art: The Other Industry, Emeryville, CA AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES

2013 Finalist, Portland Art Museum Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, Portland, OR 2001 Crater Lake National Park Artists in Residence Program, Crater Lake, OR 2000 Artist on Location Project, (residency) Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles EDUCATION Southern Oregon University, BFA, Ashland, OR, 1999 San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, 1986 San Francisco Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA, 1983 BIBLIOGRAPHY Exploring Reality, (Cat.) Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR, 2016 Laurel Bustamante: The Listening Stillness, (Cat.) Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2014 Laurel Bustamante presents ‘Lost Gardens,’ Editor’s Pick, Portland Monthly Magazine, April 4, 2013, www.portlandmonthlymag.com Richard Speer, Laurel Bustamante: Lost Gardens, Willamette Week, April 17, 2013, www.wweek.com Museum Announces Artists for Contemporary Northwest Art Awards: Q&A with Curator Bonnie Laing- -Malcolmson, Portal: Portland Art Museum Magazine, Portland, OR, Vol, 2, Issue 2, January 2013; 15 Vickie Aldous, Gallery Celebates Tiny Detailed Art, Ashland Daily Tidings, June 1, 2012, www.ashlandtidings.com Laurel Bustamante: Night Birds, Women and Their Work: Sister Space, January 24, 2011, www.womenandtheirwork.com Laurel Bustamante: Nightbirds, Glasstire (Texas Visual Art) February 11, 2011, www.glasstire.com Vickie Aldous, Birds in the Night, Ashland Daily Tidings, Ashland, OR, October 2010; 4 Julie Vandenberg, The Work of Laurel Bustamante, Sneak Preview, Ashland, OR, October 1010; 7 Jody Zellen, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Artscene, Los Angeles, CA, September 2009; 15 B. Allen Bayard, Artist on Location Project, The Ashland Daily Tidings, Ashland, OR, September 2000, 3 Regina Almaguer, 1991 Fifth Annual Emeryville Exhibition of Art, (Cat.) Bachus Press, Inc., Berkeley, CA, October 1991; 14 Jennifer Crohn, Art as a Civic Virtue, The East Bay Guardian, Oakland, CA, November 1991; 51 Carl Worth, Emeryville Celebration of the Arts 1989: 3rd Annual Art Exhibition:“Art, the Other Industry, (Cat. Ill.) Photon Press, Emeryville, CA, 1989; 10 Robert Tomilson, Art, the Other Industry: Emeryville Exhibition 88 (Cat.) Albany Press, Albany, CA, 1988; 6 Robert Tomilson, “Emeryville 1st Annual Art Exhibition: Art, the Other Industry” (Cat. Ill.) Albany Press, Albany, CA, 1987; 12