Ceremonies for the Self

Chicago-based artist Laura Berger creates artworks that explore the search for meaning on a personal, human scale as well as on a larger, societal one. The works are figurative and tend to feature simplified human forms interacting with minimalist backgrounds and objects.

Tides

Though she works in many media including digital art, painting and sculpture, I find that her paintings are where Berger’s style truly shines. These works function almost equally well as figurative paintings, and patterned, geometric abstractions. Human figures - simplified, bendy, with black hair and varied skin tone – dance across fields of negative space, sometimes holding intricately patterned objects like blankets, and other times forming a pattern in their own placement.

Laura Berger’s website also features a selection of animated GIFs which are simple and utterly charming. Each one comprises on or two human figures, usually performing a simple movement – ranging from a shrug of the shoulders to an elaborate fall onto a see-saw. These remind me a bit, in tone and medium, of the art of Sarah Kaltwasser.

Launch, animated gif