Info

My autonomous sculptures are surrogates or artifacts of domestic labor performed by women to keep one’s house and/or self maintained, such as cooking, cleaning, dusting, serving, washing, etc. These mundane rituals are essential to maintain order, but invisible in the sense that the tasks themselves and the people who perform them are often unrecognized. Petrified under layers of hand-applied, silvery graphite pencil, the original purpose, functionality, and history of these objects are simultaneously erased, enshrined, and suspended in time.

I manipulate and elevate quotidian materials (pencil) into sculptural form. By obscuring the definability of material or object, I am able to upend the hierarchy of art materials; diversifying the male-dominated canon of sculpture and its associated discussions on form and materials. This is pencil as sculpture, and drawing as three dimensional form.

By meticulously applying graphite pencil by hand to unexpected surfaces; I am bringing 'drawing' itself into the foreground by redefining its terms. This process is not purely an aesthetic decision; it is an almost-obsessive, deeply labor intensive burnishing of pencil mark upon pencil mark, transforming an ordinary proletarian material into something extraordinary.

My curiosity, is what are the systems of labor that we recognize? At what cost? How do we resist and comply?

In 2022, I was diagnosed with a neurological disorder where I often lose function of my hand. On a personal level, It has further forced me to investigate why I pursue these "invisible labors," and the pain it causes. The pencil markings accumulate, burnishing into a metal-armor-like veneer. My mark making is a record of my physical presence and also my personal erasure.

Lauren Seiden is a Brooklyn based artist who has exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide including The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI; Weisman Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Galerie Nosco, Brussels, Belgium; FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; Lyles & King Gallery, New York, NY; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Maccarone Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Museum PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, Germany. She has been reviewed and featured in ArtForum, Modern Painters, The Brooklyn Rail, New York Magazine, WideWalls, Art in America, and many others. Her work resides in numerous public and private collections.

contact : lauren.r.seiden@gmail.com