Bio
Laura Yurko is a Cleveland-based artist who works in textiles, painting, and performance art. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2017 she was awarded the 2018 Fellowship at Praxis Fiber Workshop. Yurko has exhibited her work in the Cleveland area since 2015, in galleries such as Praxis, Hedge, FORUM and SPACES. Her 2018 solo exhibition, “Convergence” consisted of a variety of highly saturated 2D and 3D fiber art, crafted to produce a fantasy landscape. From 2018 through 2019, Yurko performed at Maelstrom Collaborative Arts and The Kent Dome, showcasing multisensory and audience participatory performance art. Yurko continues her artistic practice from her studio in Atlanta, GA focusing on her independent stop-motion project as well as a new word series.

Artist Statement

My work focuses on a playful investigation of the development of the self through social interactions and the routines of everyday life. This is exemplified through affordable, gaudy materials and the child-like visualization of traditional, domestic events, attachments to archetypal characters, and familiar phrases. Infusing an overt implementation of the typically repressed subconscious with our entertainment, our morning routines, or how we communicate, we can garner a more sincere take on our otherwise over-looked experiences and needs. The absurdity of our everyday choices and priorities are reconsidered and critiqued by dramatizing the mundane.

The combination of flashy and cheap materials brings a relatable yet energizing tone to my body of work. Scanning over my work feels like a trip to JoAnn’s that’s gotten out of hand. The bold color palette serves as a rebellious contrast to marketed muted “high-end” color palettes and is more akin to the marketing of childhood, a time where the subconscious was not yet shamed and when play was unrestrained. The accumulation and abstraction of these materials provides an opportunity for curiosity and investigation through the multiple layers of processes and references.

By both encouraging a return to play and inferring the darker half of memory retrieval, the viewer is caught between the two states of the suppressed child and the conforming adult. The work provides a space for reflection as well as empathizing with other’s and their own experiences, needs, and desires.