laureen griffin

In a poetic sense, beauty has inspired humans throughout history. Beauty is said to attain and demonstrate wealth and power, and so naturally we strive for ultimate beauty. However, because beauty is measured through comparison – one may or may not be “beautiful” depending on concurrence with a culturally constructed ideal or value system.  A community or society places high value on beauty when it meets set standards.  Those measured as less beautiful, are deemed less valuable.

Laureen Griffin looks at how culture is preserved through symbolic gesture. How a sense of security is established as we recognize symbolic language and social coding that uphold our values. And how we are conditioned to associate material display in our homes and on our person with a sense of belonging.  Griffin looks at the establishment of social hierarchies through materialism and uses symbolic devices of adornment as commentary on American material culture and social structures. Specifically, Griffin challenges aesthetics of femaleness through commentary on personal and historical devices of ornament used in portraiture and home decoration.

Laureen’s work initially confronts society’s displacement of female identity while examining systems of social hierarchy. She has recently begun a series of installations: BEAUTY REVISITED contextualizing the GENDER PORTRAITURE PROJECT within home-like environments.  The Gender Portraiture Project (2007-present), both participatory and didactic, is an ongoing series of photographic portraits, exploring femaleness, in which the participant (portraitee) and artist (Griffin) work collectively to materialize personal narrative into unique photographic portraits.  Stories told by participants (those posing in the portraits) are about being stereotyped. What is appropriate behavior in relation to perceived gender? What have we been taught about personal aesthetics and hygiene? What are societal expectations depending on class, ethnic heritage, and family background? Every portrait is individually negotiated and designed in collaboration with each subject. The portraits reflect fantastical and inner (often hidden) selves of common people: workers, students, and artists. The ornately framed portraits are installed within decorative settings to evoke gendered critique of American material culture.  Laureen is now beginning to print textiles (furnishing fabrics and wallpaper), collecting furniture and designing full room settings.

Biography

Laureen Griffin’s artistic renditions of female-beauty and community practices have won her awards and recognition within Philadelphia and the United States. This year, 2010, she has been awarded a two year Center For Emerging Visual Artists Career Development Fellowship and as a result a 6 week residency at NextFab Studio. The 2007 Leeway Foundation Transformation Award, 5-County Arts Fund, and artist in residency at 40th St. AIRSPACE, have launched her artistic vision towards new and expansive audiences through her work Gender Portraiture Project. February 2009, Laureen was invited to the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY for printing large-scale fabrics as part her Beauty Revisited series. Laureen co-founded transgression artist collective in 2006. Since 2002 she has been actively pursuing her vision for re-presenting notions of femaleness through video, photography and printmaking while leading video and photography projects with diverse participants such as families in transitional housing and youth in Camden City, West Philadelphia, and North East High School students of Arab and Palestinian descent and AP High School Students in Radnor. Laureen has exhibited in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. In 1996, she received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills Michigan and in 1986 her BFA from Syracuse University.