Lauren Fensterstock

With so much turmoil on the ground, I’ve turned my eyes to the sky for wisdom. Moody storms. Ominous comets. Dying stars. These fleeting events are a historically rich subject for the projection of human anxiety, hopes, and fears. I build sculptures and installations that explore the narratives we develop to find meaning in nature, and the landscapes we fabricate to situate ourselves in the world. The interwoven political, personal, and environmental crises gripping this moment reveal our need to look beyond a human-centered reality for meaningful context. The highly decorative surfaces of these artworks highlight the beauty of a world that may at times be indifferent to us but is nonetheless magnificent in its complexity. The cumulative processes associated with historical ladies’ crafts – such as mosaics, shellworking, and papercutting- highlight the tension between small parts and a whole. Making these constructions is the act of taking disparate pieces and uniting them into something new and holistic.

Lauren Fensterstock: Impermanent Conditions

June 12, 2021 to August 14, 2021

Claire Oliver Gallery

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“With so much turmoil on the ground, I've turned my eyes to the sky for wisdom. Moody storms. Ominous comets. Dying stars” states Fensterstock. “Weather events and celestial sightings are a historically rich location for the projection of human anxiety, hopes, and fears. Mosaics highlight the tension between small parts and a whole.

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Suspect Realities @ Seattle Art Fair 2018

August 2, 2018 to August 5, 2018

CenturyLink Field Event Center, Seattle WA

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It has become increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction. Voyeurism is in, yet can we believe what we see? In today’s digitized, Instagram world, nothing is sure; one always must distrust. Photoshop naturalizes the false. Any image can be manipulated, cropped, retouched, enhanced, any sound altered, any voice “Auto-Tuned” until no authenticity remains. Reality T.V. is artifice with predictable narrative, directed and scripted dialogue, and post-production editing that seamlessly delivers emotional attachment and pleasure in between strategically placed commercial breaks. In “CelebReality” everyone can vicariously share Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame not so readily found in our work a day lives.

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Lauren Fensterstock, Holophusicon

March 18, 2017 to June 18, 2017

MOCA Jacksonville

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Fensterstock transforms the Atrium Gallery at MoCA Jacksonville into a cabinet of curiosity that expands her interest in natural history and personal collections, principally Holophusicon, an eighteenth-century natural history and ethnographical museum in London, and American artist Robert Smithson's Mirror with Crushed Shells, created during an exploration on the beaches of Sanibel, Florida. Inspired by one quirky collection and a conceptual artwork, Fensterstock will collect shells in her native Maine and Sanibel Island to produce large ornamental cabinets as well as loose, organic stalactites to pepper the wall. At times described as grottos, at others cabinets of curiosities, the physical black elements merge disparate parts into a single organism.

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VOLTA NY 2017

March 1, 2017 to March 5, 2017

NYC Pier 90

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The installation is comprised of a large cabinet on the west wall of the stand, housing a series of handheld black glass objects that, when held up as a mirror, reflect an unnaturally large human in relation to the world around him. A series of rubber, glass and chrome wall pieces reflect and refract with black mouthblown glass mirrors. Viewed through today’s lens of “selfie culture”, we see man’s continued struggle to hold dominance over nature and the natural world. Ultimately, mirrors provide a space for the viewer’s own interpretation. Scrying will offer the visitor an opportunity to examine the cultural precedents that influence and shape our current worldviews; Fensterstock presents an opportunity to look out, beyond, and within.

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Lauren Fensterstock: Scrying

July 11, 2019 to August 31, 2019

Claire Oliver Gallery

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Scrying, a solo exhibition of new mixed media sculpture by Lauren Fensterstock. The artist's newest works combine chromed and rubberized shell work with mouth blown and cold worked glass, conceptually questioning the current "selfie" obsession and a possible link between this and past social obsessions.

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Lauren Fensterstock: The Order of Things

April 14, 2016 to May 22, 2016

Claire Oliver Gallery

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With a similar faculty as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, seen as a personal dialogue between an individual and nature, Fensterstock reminds us we must take heed of the global forces impacting our environment. The Order of Things is not a map that paints the world as a whole, but one that seeks discovery in glints and crumbles; in contrast to Smithson, Fensterstock’s work intentionally avoids grand narratives in favor of the fractious, the illogical, and the contradictory. The Order of Things uses theatrical means to create a hybrid natural/unnatural space using the continued potency of nature as a cultural metaphor.

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Public Collections:

Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Bushwick ME
Wheaton College, Norton, MA
Maine General Medical Center, Agusta ME
Ogunquit Museum of Art, Ogunquit ME
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL
Portland Museum of Art, Portland ME
Fidelity Investments
Tiffany & Co, Kuwait City, Kuwait
Tiffany & Co, Prague, Czech Republic
Tiffany & Co, Apkujong, South Korea
Tiffany & Co, Daegu, South Korea
Tiffany & Co, New York, New York
University of Maine Museum of Art, Orono ME

Solo Exhibitions:

New York, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY, 2019
Lauren Fensterstock: Portal, Lupin Foundation Gallery, University of Georgia, 2019
Holophusicon, MOCA Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, 2017
Scrying, VOLTA NY, solo presentation with Claire Oliver Gallery, NY, 2017
The Order of Things, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY, 2016
Forays and Follies, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 2015
New York, Lauren Fensterstock, Independent Art Projects, North Adams, MA, 2014
Preparatory Drawings, Aucocisco, Portland, ME, 2014
Lauren Fensterstock, Sienna Patti Contemporary, Lenox, MA, 2013
The Celebration of Formal Effects, Weather Natural or Artificial, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI 2013
Incidents of Garden Displacement, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME, 2011
Mound, Sienna Patti Contemporary, Lenox, MA, 2010
Of Groves, Labyrinths, Dedals, Cabinets, Cradles, Close-walks, Galleries, Pavilions, Portico’s, Lanterns and other Relievo’s of Topiary and Hortulan Architecture, Walker Contemporary, Boston, MA, 2010
New Projects, Washington Art Association, Washington Depot, CT, 2009
Parterre, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME, 2008

Two Person Exhibitions:

Renwick Invitational, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 2020
Nature in Art, MOCAK, Krakow, Poland, 2019
Ritual and Desire, Wichita Art Museum, KS, 2017
Seattle Art Fair, Claire Oliver Gallery, 2016
Theories of the Earth: Lauren Fensterstock and Beth Lipman, Beard and Weil Galleries, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, 2016
Two Takes: One Space, Lauren Fensterstock and Steve Wiman, The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX, 2011
Lauren Fensterstock and John Bisbee, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME, 2011

Group Exhibitions:

A Dark Place of Dreams, The Gibbs Museum of Art, Charleston, SC, 2018-19
Seattle Art Fair, Claire Oliver Gallery, 2018
The Bleak and the Burgeoning, Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AK, 2018
Natural Wonders, Brandywine Museum, Chadds Ford, PA, 2018
A Dark Place of Dreams, MOCA Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, 2018
Dark and Stormy Night: The Gothic in Contemporary Art, Lehman Gallery, Bronx, NY, 2017
Ruptures, Des Moines Art Center, IA, 2017
Deep Cuts, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester NH, 2016
Sisters of the Moon, Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, Louisville, KY, 2016
Paper Biennale, Museum Rijswijk, Rijswijk, Netherlands, 2016
Director’s Cut, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME, 2015
Recurrence, Friedman Gallery, New York, NY, 2014
Surface, Stephen D. Paine Gallery at Mass Art, Boston, MA, 2014
Piecework, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME, 2013
DUBH: Dialogues in Black, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, 2012
Maine Biennale, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME, 2012
Maine Women Pioneers, UNE Gallery at the University of New England, Portland, ME, 2012
DUBH: Dialogues in Black, American Irish Historical Society, New York, NY, 2011
Buds, Blooms & Berries: Plants in Science, Culture & Art, Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA, 2011
Field of Vision: Artists Explore Place, Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI, 2011
Sacred and Profane, Portsmouth Museum of Fine Art, Portsmouth, NH, 2010
The Thinking Body, Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA, 2008
The Thinking Body, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, OR, 2008
New Natural History, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME, 2008
In Situ, Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery, Mass Art, Boston, MA, 2007
Laced with History, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI, 2007
Marriage of True Minds, University of New England Art Gallery, Portland, ME, 2007

Awards and Honors:

Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant, 2018
USA Barr Fellow, United States Artists, 2016
Individual Artist Fellowship, Maine Arts Commission, 2010
Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant nominee, 2005, 2009
Good Idea Grant, Maine Arts Commission, 2004, 2006, 2008
Creative Project Award, Grant Recipient, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, 1999
Graduate Fellowship, SUNY New Paltz, Fall 1999, Spring 1999

Bibliography:

McQuaid, Cate. Resilient Nature, Spiritual Echoes in New Shows, Boston Globe, March 22, 2016.
Ferris, Alison, Uncommon Ground, exhibition catalog, John Michael Kohler Art Center, 2015
Take Magazine, Art with Attitude, December 2015,
Hagan, Debbie, Portland’s Contemporary Baroque, Art New England, November 2015
Papagni, Chris, Dining Art: Inside Outside Above Below, Portland Phoenix, September 30, 2015
Lieberman, Michael, Forays, and Follies, Artblog.com, August 6, 2015
Minutella, Erica, Taking Stock of Lauren Fensterstock, InLiquid Art and Design, July 24, 2015
Keyes, Bob the Maine/Miami art connection, Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, December 14, 2014.
Gjording, Lindsey Rae, The Dark Yet Luminous World of Lauren Fensterstock, beautifuldecay.com, December 12, 2014
Schiff, Lisa, The Top Nine Trending Artists Under 40 in Miami, artsy.com, December 3, 2014
Butler, Sharon, Inspired by Fiction: Recurrence at Fridman, Two Coats of Paint, August 16, 2014
Bigman, Alex, Recurrence at Fridman Gallery, Daily Serving, August 7, 2014
McQuaid, Cate, Glassy works get to the heart of prejudices, Boston Globe, January 28, 2014
Kany, Dan, Lucinda Bliss, Lauren Fensterstock at Aucocisco in Portland, Portland Press Herald, January 12, 2014
Beem, Edgar Allen, and Konnau, Britta, Maine Women Pioneers III, exhibition catalog, University of New England, 2013
Morris, Mark, iPastoral, Landscape into Architecture, Architectural Design, March 2013
Jurkiewicz, Colleen, “Uncommon Ground” Brings the Natural World Inside, On Milwaukee, July 14, 2013
Daniel, Eddee, Review: Field of Vision at the Racine Art Museum, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 2011
Diehl, Carol, Radical Sentimentalism: The World of Lauren Fensterstock, artist monograph, 2011
Beem, Edgar Allen, Art on the Edge, Downeast, August 2010
McQuaid, Cate, Gardens Dark and Foreboding, Boston Globe, April 14, 2010
Weisgall, Deborah, SEE: Lauren Fensterstock, Maine, Nov/Dec 2009

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Lauren Fensterstock
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Press Release Archives

Impermanent Conditions
June 12– August 7, 2021

Conversations on Content

Impermanent Conditions: artist Lauren Fensterstock discusses with Claire her use of ancient text and celestial mysteries to inspire in her new exhibition

Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020 – Virtual Preview

Lauren Fensterstock is featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) exhibition virtual opening reception and program for “Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020