STATEMENT

My work explores the fragile architecture of memory and its entanglement with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), particularly through the lens of false memory, mental contamination, rumination, and the elusive desire for things to feel “just right.” Grounded in the emotional landscape of childhood, my practice is shaped by psychological rhythms of OCD such as returning, doubting, collecting, and preserving. I draw with meticulous care in grayscale, rendering tattered toys, reminiscent textures, and half-remembered spaces with obsessive attention to light, texture, and detail. Each piece is a nostalgic reconstruction of my own recollections where fear, tenderness, and longing quietly coexist. Whether sourced from photographs, built from memory, or imagined entirely, each piece navigates the shifting space between what was, what is remembered, and what is compulsively reimagined. Repetition functions as both subject and strategy in my work. I revisit the same objects and ideas, not just to remember them, but to reclaim them. These quiet rituals of reworking, collecting, and refining mirror the cognitive loops of OCD and transform the drawing process into an act of preservation. Living with OCD has shaped what I remember and how I remember: in fragments, with doubt, and always through repetition. These drawings are small acts of recalibration, sensory grounding, and tender confrontations with the fear of forgetting. In a world that moves quickly, my work offers a place for stillness, where mental illness, childhood, and memory are permitted to unravel at their own pace.

BIO

Lauren is a Fine Artist from Greenville, SC, earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Fine Arts with a minor in Art History from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL. Currently, she is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree with a specialization in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking at the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design, Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. Her work has been displayed in institutions and galleries across the United States, including New Hampshire Institute of Art (Manchester, NH), Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA), Center for Creative Arts (St. Louis, MO), South Bend Museum of Art (South Bend, IN), Pratt Manhattan Gallery (New York, NY), Art Ovation Hotel (Sarasota, FL), and the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Washington, D.C.). Additionally, her work has also been featured in publications such as Oxford American Magazine and Strokes of Genius 9: Creative Discoveries/The Best of Drawing published by North Light Books.