Artist Bio
I am a huge fan of the photographic idiom. I’ll never forget being gobsmacked in college by the incredible photographs of Emmet Gowin. I also recall vividly my sense of awe when I first saw the works of Walker Evans, Diane Arbus and Sally Mann, to name a few favorites among the titans.
I am an unashamed devotee of the “retinal” approach to visual art. While images may have a political or social meaning, in the end they must work on their own terms as objects of either beauty or fascination. I am in agreement with this 2018 quote from Peter Schjeldahl, art critic at The New Yorker magazine: “Why do political partisans ever place faith in fine art, which has proved incorrigibly hedonistic for, to date, thousands of years?”
Except for 12 years on the East Coast, I have lived my life in the Midwest, a region whose sere beauty and generous skies inspire me. I have worked as a journalist and a high school teacher as well as a photographer.
Laura K. Lloyd
Exhibitions:
Deines Cultural Center, Russell, KS, Mystery,Magic and the Macabre, 3rd annual juried show, Oct. 22-Nov. 22, 2023: Juror, Rodney Wood, magic realism painter.
Kansas City Society of Contemporary Photography, Current Works 2023 group show, Sept. 23-Nov. 5, 2023. Juror: Elijah Gowin, professor of photography, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Princeton University Alumni Virtual Visual Arts Show, Princeton, N.J. May 26, 2023.
9th Annual Allegany National Photography Competition & Exhibition, Cumberland, MD: April 1-22, 2023: Juror: Todd J. Tubutis, director, Art Museum of West Virginia University.
PhotoSpiva 2023, Joplin, MO: March 18-May 13, 2023. Juror: Jennifer B. Thoreson, Albequerque, N.M.-based photographer.
Kansas City Artists’ Coalition 40th Annual Art Auction, photographic piece in silent auction, Feb. 25, 2023.
Kansas City Society of Contemporary Photography, Current Works 2022 group show, December 2, 2022-February 25, 2023. Juror: April Watson, curator of photography, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Photoplace Gallery, Middlebury, VT: June 23-July 22, 2022. Juror: Sandrine Hermand-Grisel, All About Photo website curator and award-winning photographer.
Johnson County, KS, Public Library, Gardner Branch: solo show of Botanicals, May-June, 2022
Cary Photographic Artists, Cary, N.C.: 2nd Annual Open Juried Digital Exhibit, May 2022. Jurors: Lewis Katz, teaching faculty at Johns Hopkins University, and Ginger Sheridan, retired professor of photography, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Fla.
Prairie Village, KS, Arts Council: May-June 2022. Juror: Angie Jennings, president of Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography.
Now Showing, ArtsKC Regional Arts Council: Community Federal Bank Crossroads, April, 2022
Las Laguna Art Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA: Botanical Art and Illustration December 2021 online exhibition, 12/2/21-12/31/21
Kansas City Stockyards Gallery, Kansas City, MO: 4th Annual Holiday Small Works Show, 11/19/21-1/14/22
Verum Ultimum Art Gallery, Portland, OR: 8th Annual Abstract Catalyst Online Show, 9/6/21-10/9/21
Kansas City Society of Contemporary Photography, Solo Show, “Backyard Botanicals”, September, 2021
Jones Gallery, Kansas City, MO: August Group Art Show, 8/1/21-8/26/21
Images Art Gallery, Overland Park, KS, 17th Annual Juried Show, 7/12/21-8/13/21. Juror: Sandra Shaffer, watercolor artist
Prairie Village, KS, Arts Council, 4th Annual Art of Photography, April-May 2021. Juror: Aaron Smith, professor of visual art and photography, Johnson County Community College
Kansas City Society of Contemporary Photography, Current Works 2020 Group Show, December, 2020. Juror: Megan Benitz, Exhibition Manager, Albrecht-Kemper Museum, St. Joseph, MO.
Permanent Installation, 64th & Blvd. apartment complex, Kansas City, MO.
Now Showing, ArtsKC regional arts council, Burns and McDonnell, 2/2018 through 4/2018