Laurel Sparks is a Brooklyn-based painter whose work embodies geometric symbol systems and the transmitting potential of analog materiality. She holds an M.F.A. from Bard College and a B.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University in Boston, MA. Her exhibitions include solo shows at Kate Werble gallery, NYC and group shows at Cheim and Read gallery, NYC; LX, NYC; Franklin Street Works, Stamford, CT; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, NYC; Barbara Walters Gallery at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY; Berman Museum at Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA; Elizabeth Foundation Gallery, NYC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; and Art In General, NYC.
Laurel Sparks’ exhibitions have been reviewed in publications such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Paris Review, Blouin Artinfo, The Brooklyn Rail, Two Coats of Paint, Modern Painters, New American Paintings, the Drawing Center’s the Bottom Line, Art21 Magazine, Vogue Mexico, Boston Globe, Art in America, Bloomberg, Timeout New York, Huffington Post, and Art and Auction. She has received numerous grants and fellowships including MacDowell, Elizabeth Foundation Studio Intensive Program at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, NY; Fire Island Artist Residency, NY; Residenza del Palmerino, Associazione Culturale Il Palmerino, Italy; Berkshire Taconic Fellowship; SMFA Alumni Traveling Fellowship; and an Elaine DeKooning Fellowship.
At MacDowell, she completed a series of hand-woven paintings informed by mathematical and symbolic geometric systems. This work expands upon themes from her 2018 exhibitions at Kate Werble Gallery and Cheim and Read gallery NYC that were reviewed in The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and Brooklyn Rail.
