Laurie Victor Kay: Visual Dialogue

Laurie Victor Kay
 

By CARLOTA GAMBOA November 18, 2024

Sometimes, life asks you to travel back, for better or worse. When artist Laurie Victor Kay began her project Apothecary fourteen years ago, I’m sure she assumed its subject matter would eventually yield into a different series, but things are hardly ever so straightforward. It’s almost as if some projects begin so that we can arrive back to meet them when we’re ready. When Apothecary was first conceived in 2010, the images of saturated pill-bottles and prescription drugs— organized to resemble printed patterns— correlated with the question of artifice and the metaphorical notation of external prescriptions placed onto women, whether that be hand-bags, thin bodies, or xanax.

Now, things have taken a different course. This isn’t necessarily unfamiliar for Laurie. While speaking to her, she had made it clear that her life hadn’t been without its winding turns. Having begun her practice in art school with painting and technical drawing, she hadn’t known how a career in art would end up panning out. Unaware that a future as a multimedia artist and photographer would produce fruitful opportunities, Laurie had been one of five siblings raised by their single mother, a force of nature who encouraged her to pursue her passions. Fueled by authentic connections and following her intuition, Laurie’s road to her current work has not been a linear one.

Apothecary has changed throughout the decade, and has evolved into a more personal project. Though its intention is still one of bringing people together through the questioning of societal status quo, it now directly takes on the struggles of mental health. “Even though I still feel young, as someone in their ‘mid-life,’ or ‘mid-career,’ I’m compelled to use my voice in a stronger way,” says Laurie. “Especially after loss, since through loss there is so much gain.” 

Laurie Victor Kay, Security, Apothecary

Seismic change has reared itself into her life over the past couple years. After experiencing panic attacks, anxiety, and feelings of depression, the series she had begun all those years ago was still there, waiting to be continued. Laurie’s journey of self-examining led her to open up about on-going struggles and channel the pain into her creative process. Her mother was also there to help, and stood by her. Unfortunately, Laurie’s mother was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last year and passed away after a short amount of time.

“I bought my mother’s house after her passing,” she says. “It was the most intense thing I’ve ever been through, but it gave me clarity on what matters most, and that I had to keep choosing myself. As humans, we can connect through joy, but coming from this need to create, to survive, I hope it opens up a dialogue about trauma, loss and grief, and how vulnerability through creativity helps connect people.” She called the process an “eye-opening pathos,” from the Greek word for suffering which her most recent series is named after. 

Pathos is a project she also started a few years ago during another difficult personal time, but the series is taking on new meaning now as an exploration into the self-portrait. This is something new for Laurie, whose profuse and luxuriant subjects span from collages of historical architecture, sunset beaches to skate parks, a plethora of underground metro-stops, and images of pills in high contrast, but it is the first time we see a series wholly dedicated to herself.

Three Graces, Pathos

The images, which vary in composition, saturation, and direction, all have one thing in common—herself in the center. There is also an interesting element of distance that Laurie utilizes in the images. She shares that some photographs and videos are taken from the graphed display of a second, or better said, primary camera, and that the work is playing with levels of distortion. “I’m using a highly sharp and technical camera, but working to make the image appear very gritty and blurry,” she states about the project’s process. “This then becomes its own subject matter.” 

I also suspect that there’s a desire on Laurie’s part to create a kind of physical distance, either from the conveyed subject of loss to the viewer, or from the subject to the artist herself. The process of coming to terms with grief is confusing, exhausting and uniquely personal. Perhaps this felt like the most accurate way of describing something so untangleable, by leaning into the layered elements of the physical image. Creating replicas, manipulating the focus, and displaying the very tools which capture vulnerability itself. Laurie says this was an attempt to break down the “glass houses of how we represent ourselves,” and that sentiment is palpable throughout the series of Pathos.

Laurie Victor Kay, Fuck, Blue, Apothecary

Laurie’s roulette of different styles can also be seen as a color wheel, capturing the psychological landscapes of our human experience. There is a balance in what she creates, from the fun and enchanting, to the more serious and contemplative. She wishes for viewers to experience the healing images have to offer. Her series Trees, mirrored and kaleidoscopic, that radiate with illuminated hues of green, is just one example of Laurie’s therapeutic understanding of image-making. The idealization of a natural space may work to balance out emotions present in other projects, but no doubt all of Laurie’s work brims with life. Even the most inanimate of Laurie’s subjects teems with immense heart, making even the most defamiliarized instances recognizable as the details embroidering our daily encounters.

Through collage work, digital editing, and superimposed drawings or written word, Laurie is able to build an extensive multidimensional visual language. The road which has long been adding to her lexicon, piece by piece, is shaped by styles and backdrops that range from Georgia O’Keeffe—specifically Sky Above Clouds IV, 1965— to Yves Klein’s Untitled Anthropometry (1960) and the architectural marvels of the Duomo in Florence. It is no surprise that her interests are vast and textured. Laurie has picked up lineages and styles, melding them together into her own vision, becoming not only the eye that is capturing, but a part of what is captured. WM

To learn more about Laurie Victor Kay, please visit her website and follow her on Instagram @laurievictorkay