Laura Thompson (b. 1980, Rochester, New York) is an mixed media and collage artist based in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her contemporary and surrealist work combines meticulously cut imagery from vintage magazines with abstract and representational painting to create dream-like and amusing compositions. 

She left upstate NY in 1998 to attend James Madison University, where she earned her BFA in Graphic Design and MA in Art Education. She began showing her stained and fused glass art in 2004, but returned to drawing and painting after her daughter was born in 2008. She worked with graphite and watercolor, then leaned heavily into oil painting for several years, at which point her characteristic tone of humor emerged. After a pandemic-induced painting hiatus, she discovered her signature mixed media collage style, which debuted in January 2021.

My surreal little worlds are comprised of meticulously cut pieces from vintage magazines on painted backgrounds, both abstract and figurative.

Drawing largely from a collection of nostalgic images from the post-World War II era, these over-glorified motifs from a “great” Western society possess a comedic quality, further amplified when recontextualizing them.

To create the setting, I build loose background layers of paint and then add structure with lines, shapes, or objects, before pulling from my cataloged library of images I have scoured decades-old magazines to find. Arranging and rearranging different objects and characters, I play with the composition until a sense of tension, humor, or absurdity emerges. By placing subjects in impossible scenes and juxtaposing them in impossible relationships and settings, they can discover a new, more fanciful, purpose.

The goal is to draw the viewer closer, provoke wonder, and invite them into the joke. I strive to create a more inclusive, alternate reality where logic is loosely interpreted and possibilities are endless. People, animals, and objects find themselves part of new narratives in themes such as the relationships between people, our relationships with animals and the planet, social justice issues, inclusion, and feminism.

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