Lauren Silva

In her highly anticipated, ​second solo exhibition at the gallery, Lauren Silva's paintings take on a new sheen. A combination of painting, printing, and collage on ​silk wrapped canvases, Silva's several signature approaches are heightened by the inherent luster of the fiber.

The painterly quality of her digital manipulations and saturated, vibrant​ sense of color combine in compositions that defy practical analysis. Light sources appear and evaporate, morphing and creating a dimensional schism. Distinct layers are often defined by the inclusion of seamless collage elements in the form of applied paper, outlined in black, like cartoon clouds on the parti-color dream of a tranquil pupa.

Smaller in scale than those paintings of her 2014 debut exhibition, the new work matches in surreal ebullience their predecessors, praised by Roberta Smith as "big, boisterous semi-abstract canvases (that) exude an impressive confidence... like close-ups of billboards or a tour through some outsize undergrowth in which nature has merged with several brands of abstraction, from early American Modernism to Color Field painting... (Silva) is already is tackling a lot with an astuteness and aplomb that make her a painter to watch."

Born in the Bay Area in 1987, Laura Silva received her BFA from UCLA and her MFA from Columbia University, where she received the Tobey Devan Lewis award. In 2011, she also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In addition to The New York Times, her work has been featured in press by Artforum, Artinfo, and Artnet. Silva lives and works in New York City.