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STATEMENT
 

I create freeform abstractions that often function as visual puzzles concerning the distinction between planarity and solidity. I am interested in the process of perception and the possibility of alternate “readings” of objects in our visual fields. Although most of my work is wall-mounted, it is never physically or visually flat. I improvise with unusual materials and invented methods, and also like to explore the mutability and flow of geometric patterns and forms: how simple shapes can give rise to more complex, expressive, and life-like patterns, as in nature. I create my pieces to exert the emotive force of beauty. I start some works with hand-woven grids of painted string, then elaborate them with gestural and off-the-grid additions. I arrive at dimensional compositions by buckling surfaces or layering with other string constructs or materials. Other work is created digitally but realized in archival pigment on painted, shaped wood or shaped, mirrored panels. The shapes are two-dimensional projections (as they are seen) of one of the five “Platonic” solids (the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, or the icosahedron). At first glance, they often appear to exist in 3-dimensional space. Most recently, I have set these objects on segmentally painted backgrounds, surrounded by frames, all in the same unusual shapes. I mix the colors to create harmonious visual “conversations” with the central panels, the frame, and with each other. I found that extending the illusionistic format this way heightens the spatial-versus-flat contrasts, making them starker, more puzzling, and more uncanny. 

BIO

Laurence's work challenges perception while integrating biomorphic abstraction and geometry. He thinks of this combination as tracing the emergence of complex organic patterns from simple elements. He devised idiosyncratic processes using unusual materials and techniques, including drawings with hand-woven, painted string and a multistep photographic and digital process realized on shaped acrylic sheets and wood panels. He exhibits frequently regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Laurence earned an AB from Princeton University and an MD from Stanford, where he also took some undergraduate drawing and painting classes. After completing his medical training at Stanford, he was a Professor of Medicine at the University of New Mexico, ultimately returning to the Bay Area in 2001. After retiring from medicine, he entered CCA’s graduate program and earned an MFA in 2018.



RESUMÉ

Born in Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Berkeley, CA.
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​Exhibitions:
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Two-Person and Solo:

  • 2026: Popup at Orchard Gallery, Oakland, CA

  • 2025: Secret Life of Plants, Cedar Street Gallery, Berkeley, CA 

  • 2024: Field of Vision, with Sandra Kelch, Gearbox Gallery, Oakland, CA 

  • 2019: Reflect/Spirit/Light at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA 

 
Group Shows, Juried or Curated:

2026

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2025

  • ​Photography Unbound, at Nizza Knoll, Denver, CO

  • Prime Time at Covet Gallery, Oceanside, CA

2024

  • Sessions 06 and 07, Galeria Azur, Berlin, Germany

  • Cut Paste Create, The Art of Collage at Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA.  Juried by Rangsook Yoon, Sr. Curator, Sarasota Art Museum, and Kimberly Acebo Arteche, Co-Executive Director, Berkeley Art Center

  • Connected at Gallery Route One, Pt. Reyes Station, CA. Juried by TaVee Lee, Gallery Manager, Transmission Gallery, Oakland

2023

  • Within Sight or From Imagination at Gearbox Gallery, Oakland, CA, Juried by Jeremy Morgan, artist

  • Abstract 2023, Awarded Prize (3rd place), New York Center for Photographic Art, https://www.nyc4pa.com/abstract-2020-21and Print Catalogue,  Juried by Darren Ching of Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2022

  • Blessed Unrest at Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA. Juried by Jack Fischer of Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco

​2021​

  • Crossing The Divide, at Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA, Juried by Donna Seager of Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

2020

  • Fragments at ARC Gallery, San Francisco, Juried by Jen Tough, Jen Tough Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

  • Out of the Box, Healdsburg Center for the Arts, Healdsburg, CA

  • California Open, 15th Annual National Competition, TAG Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Juried by Kate Mothes, Curator of Young Space, and Dovetail Magazine

  • Some Speechless Thing (Part II of Annual Members Show) at Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA, Juried from Part I open submissions by Griff Williams, Gallery 16, San Francisco 

2019

  • The Naked Print at Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI, Juried by Stephen Fisher, Professor, Art Department, Rhode Island College, Providence

  • Art + Movement at Gearbox Gallery, Oakland, CA, Juried by Maria Porges, Artist, Writer, and Faculty member, California College of the Arts, San Francisco

2018

  • Caught in the Fray, 14th Annual Textiles Exhibition, at College Street Gallery, Oakland, CA, Curated by Josh Faught, California College of the Arts

  • California College of the Arts M.F.A. Show at Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA

  • Wave-Forms at Embark Gallery, Oakland, CA, Juried by Leila Grothe, Assoc Curator, Wattis Institute, San Francisco and Baltimore Museum of Art

2017

  • Making/Thinking at Hubble Street Gallery, San Francisco, Curated by Shaun O’Dell, California College of the Arts 

  • 5th Annual Juried Art Show at the Piedmont Center for the Arts Piedmont, CA

2016

  • Krowsworkers/FARM at Krowswork Gallery, Oakland, CA, Curated by Jasmine Moorhead

2015​

  • Drawn to Line at UCBX Gallery, San Francisco, CA

  • Collect! at Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA

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Press:

  • Studio Visit (a print periodical) Vol.48, pp 62-65 (2021)  

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Education:

  • California College of the Arts,  M.F.A., 2018 

  • Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Visual Arts, UC Berkeley Extension, San Francisco, 2016 

  • Art Coursework and Workshops:  

    • U.C. Berkeley Extension, San Francisco, CA

    • Stanford University, Stanford, CA 

    • Stanford University Continuing Studies, Stanford, CA

    • Kala Institute, Berkeley, CA

    • University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

    • Harwood Foundation, Albuquerque, NM  

    • Princeton University

  • Stanford University, M.D., 1972 

  • Princeton University, A.B., 1967

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