Laura Prochowski landscape – image by Brodie Dwyer YogaPunk.
The perpetual and inescapable movement that is so essential to life is the inspiration behind Life Needs to Move, the stunning solo show of a rising star in abstract art, Laura Prochowski, which opened at Tyger Gallery in Yass on Thursday 26 October. Laura Prochowski has created 16 outstanding new paintings for the show which will be spread over two rooms in the gallery. The show runs until 12 November. Prochowski works in oils to create vivid abstracts rich with colour and movement.
“The show explores the concept of movement, and the requirement for all life to move in order to survive,” Prochowski says. “Humanity lives more sedentary lives than ever before, yet human-kind is progressing at a mind-numbing pace – we are moving as a species – but is this really what we want to be moving towards?”
That connection between humans, our environment, and the world we have created is a familiar theme in Prochowski’s stunning work. “The subjects in my works centre around the complexities of the human experience in all its beauty and ugliness, themes of gender expression, movement and action, the modern world and our interconnectedness with nature,” they say. “The core reason I started painting was to find my own voice and connect with others through emotional expression, so these are all themes that are important to me and, I think, highly relevant at this time in human history.”
Life Needs to Move is the work of an artist confident in their mark-making, comfortable with colour, and bold in their brushstrokes. It’s a stunning collection of work – and all the more so for the challenges the artist faced while creating it. “I feel proud, and a little overwhelmed by it,” Prochowski says. “This collection was painted over a six-month period that had been quite tumultuous for me personally, including the loss of a friend to cancer.
She was a huge supporter of my artistic journey and it had a big impact on what marks ended up hitting the canvas.” “I want people who see the show to feel excited, hopeful and motivated. Abstract works can be incredibly powerful, and I hope that’s what I have achieved here – something powerful.”
