Crystal Matrix Art
Studio & Pohoiki Gallery
Laura McClanahan
Artist's Bio
Artist's Statement
Laura McClanahan, MFA (Studio Art, 2008, Maryland Institute College of Art), is an internationally exhibited artist originally from the New York City area. She is now based in Pohoiki on Hawaiʻi Island, where she lives and works surrounded by the transformative landscape of the 2018 lava flow. Her work is represented by East Coast galleries and has been featured in art fairs across Geoje, Miami, New York City, Santa Fe, São Paolo, Singapore, and Paris. Locally, Laura offers original and commissioned paintings, immersive art experiences, and curatorial work through Pohoiki Gallery. Her practice extends beyond the studio into full home art installations, live painting at events, and design services. She is the creator of Lava Coast Oasis, an artist-in-residence cottage on her rural property, where artists of all types come to Hawaiʻi for focused creation, connection to nature and renewed inspiration.
My work is an exploration of both the seen and unseen realms, expressed through fluid movement and intuitive color choices relating to the emotional qualities of color. As an avid researcher of the esoteric, my paintings are about soul searching and transformation—reflecting the dynamic patterns of nature and the inner landscape of the human experience. I explore the nature of our reality and the mystery of our existence. My early influences are from travels in Spain seeing the art and architecture and undergraduate studies in organic architecture as an understanding of the underlying structures in nature that reveal the patterns of life. Seeking further focus I presented an MFA thesis on water patterns as a metaphor for thought patterns and problem solving. My practice of offering sound healing meditations with intuitive toning and abstract improvisational soundscapes connect to my expression through painting as they synthesize into the alchemy of my life. In the Human Design system, I am a rare 4/1 Manifestor, riding the waves of inspired activity to deep times of research. I am a prolific painter and performing musician, with a fixed life mission to gather people together to ignite their imagination. May experiencing and collecting my work impact your life in a meaningful way.
Collections
The "Crystal Matrix" Collection
(Featured art installation at Gemstone Gallery,
Frenchtown, NJ, USA)
Painting outside allows the sunlight energy and earth energy to merge onto the canvas. The water poured, flows around the crystals in the fundamental patterns of the meander, wave, drop and vortex spiral. Deeper Meanings of the gemstones reveal themselves to me as I work with them in my life through art and sound healing meditation.
My intention is for these living crystal paintings to have healing energy. These paintings use resin as a shrinking device around quartz crystals and metallic paints. This squeezing of the crystalline structures creates a life enhancing pulsation just like quartz crystals in a watch. They help to clear the immediate area around the painting from electromagnetic radiation and restructure Wi-Fi that may be throwing our bodies out of synch. This work assists living in tune with the world and finding synchronicity and harmony in daily life.
The "Cosmic Confluence" Collection
Confluence is the meeting of two rivers or ideas. In this series of paintings, I am exploring the integration of mark making and poured paint. The marks, as spirals and circles signify my investigations into the invisible energy in the universe. Torsion waves, scalar energy, orgone energy, chi, prana, the source field, are all names for this force that surrounds us and is within us. Sound and light frequencies emanate from the center of the galaxy relaying energy and information from the sun, stars and planets to resonate with the cells in our bodies. In turn our personal frequencies rise as our awareness of these invisible forces increases. Sensitivity to others around us, to the information we consume, to the food we eat and to how our energy is affected is vital to our expanding consciousness.
Flow patterns of water demonstrate the idea of our present state of mind and if we are in the flow or not. How our life can be a series of synchronistic events allowing for smooth transitions in times of stress. Our ability to manage stress, creatively problem solve and return back to balance combined with increasing our imagination and awareness of cosmic energy will help the collective consciousness evolve.
The "Channeling Nadis" Collection
(Large Scale paintings In Commercial and Private Collections)
With all of my Channeling Nadis series, the paintings are topographical maps of the hills and rivers around my property. The rain I noticed makes small rivers down the hillside. They are exactly like larger streams or rivers, just on a smaller scale. As the canvas dries, the pattern of water changes and layers of rivers form. The fabric allows me to gain an imprint of the ground as I trace it with flowing water mixed with acrylics and inks. This fractal branching is in the human body in many ways and in our wiring of bodily energy systems. Using mineral colors and metallics: copper, silver, gold, or turquoise, I pour a lot of water so that it picks up and carries the paint with it like sediment in a river. Each painting has a trail of minerals flowing off the end of it. The pathways or channels change and flow in new patterns with every adjustment.
While making these paintings I channeled poetry and information from a very loving and comforting energy, the titles are from these written works.
The "Evolving Patterns" Collection
Exhibitions at Simon Gallery, Morristown, NJ, USA; Ashok Jain Gallery, Artifact Gallery and Saphira Ventura Gallery, New York, NY USA
This series of paintings explores fluid water patterns of life. The paint records the movement as the liquid flows around the obstacles occurring in its path. As we are faced with challenges in our lives, we are called to evolve and float down the river meandering around each boulder as it comes. EVOLVING PATTERNS express the beauty and grace of change in our lives.
In these paintings I create resistances of crackling and dropped circles of acrylic paint to challenge the flow of ink and water. There are both micro details showing fractal patterning and also the overall form of the primary water drop shape, the seed of life. The patterns are like asteroids or star seeds that come down here with genetic material to create new life and replenish the minerals of the earth. The earth itself as a living organism is seeded, grows and evolves.
Evolving Patterns is the downloading of new information, the seeds of a new thought. In an unpredictable future, we look to break patterns toward freedom and positive change. Freedom means being in the flow of life and being free from old belief systems that no longer serve us. This is a message about personal growth and not an external catastrophe. When we find ourselves at an imbalance, how do we move around those obstacles? My message for Evolving Patterns is an evolution of our emotional and spiritual intelligence, looking at the places where we are blocked, where our hearts are broken and clearing them. Star seeds allow for a dream to emerge through our own extra sensory biological communication. As our hearts open, we connect our minds and hearts to manifest a new empathic way of healing and a way to evolve out of duality. These patterns integrate our bodies, hearts and minds to become more evolved.