Laura Domela
Russo Lee Gallery is pleased to present Bright Side by Laura Domela. This new body of work considers the many ways we respond to uncertainty, vulnerability, and the challenges of everyday life. The exhibition comprises works on paper mounted to panel, created with acrylic, gouache, Flashe, and graphite. Throughout the paintings, vivid color, floral and organic forms, and layered surfaces create compositions that are at once energetic, playful, and contemplative. Domela builds and disrupts her images through covered passages, marks, and shifts in texture, allowing elements to emerge and recede across the surface. Bright Side reflects on optimism as a way of moving through difficulty, making space for resilience, humor, beauty, and tenderness alongside fear and uncertainty. The works invite viewers into colorful, richly layered environments where moments of pleasure and unease exist together.
Laura Domela is a painter, photographer, and mixed media artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. She was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved to Southern California at age five. She lived and worked in Los Angeles until relocating to Portland in 1995 to attend art school. She earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing from the Oregon College of Art & Craft in 1999. Domela has exhibited work in the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, and the United States. Her paintings and photographs are in numerous private and public collections, including the Portland Art Museum, Komatsu Silicon America, Beaverton OR, Mazama Capital Management, Schnitzer Investment Corp., Meyer Memorial Trust, Portland, OR, and The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, NV.