Laura Forrester is a multidisciplinary artist based in Fredericton, NB. Laura has been working professionally in the arts for many years and her experience ranges from her private painting practice to incorporating arts business like the Capital Art Sale and the Grassroots Gallery. Her passion is creating a vibrant arts community though establishing opportunities for fellow artists and collaborating with other organizations and community groups.
Laura has a diverse personal art practice that includes painting and public art projects. She works out of her Queen St studio where you can find her working on her latest project for which she received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Laura has also created many large-scale commissioned murals in downtown Fredericton and around the province. Laura has most recently completed an Artist Residency at the Fredericton Playhouse in February 2022 and another at the Fredericton Botanic Gardens in 2021. Laura holds an Interdisciplinary Honours Degree in Visual Arts and has experience as a Teacher’s Assistant and leading various workshops.
Laura’s work has been recognized in many publications including the Daily Gleaner, the Telegraph Journal, Maritime Edit Magazine and Created Here Magazine.
Optical Account: visual memoirs of a year
I have been working on this project since the beginning of the year, with financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create Grant. For this project, I am completing a 4x4 wood panel painting each day as a visual journal entry based on my experiences and interpretations from the day. The 365 panels will be installed together when they are finished.
When observing the panels individually, the viewer can recognize and interpret the emotions to get a sense for what that day would have been like. When looking at the installation as a whole, the viewer will be able to see the range of human experience that a person has over the course of a year and find familiarity within their own reality.
During my month-long Artist Residency at the Bruno Bobak Studio at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery the near-completed installation will be on display. The visiting public will be invited to create their own visual journal entry for the day, or to respond to the display.
This experience will engage the public not only with the project but with their own daily experience. The pieces created by the visiting public will be displayed in the studio, to mirror the artist’s work, in an installation that presents many people’s experiences over a short-term, rather than one person’s experience long term. This will be a completely new perspective for this project but will likely show similar results: the diversity and unity of the human experience.
This project invites reflection on the ways that people are coping both alone and together. It shows that although we are all managing different challenges, our experience as humans is connected.
