BIOGRAPHY
Laurie Fader, MFA Yale School of Art; BS New York University
Laurie Fader has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Award, an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Emergency Assistance Grant, the Helen W. Winternitz Award for excellence in painting from Yale University, Great Meadows Foundation and artist’s residencies in France, Haiti, Hungary, and Italy. She lived in New York City for 25 years while teaching at Pratt Institute, then in Baltimore while she taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She was co-founder, Chair and Associate Professor at the Kentucky School of Art at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. Currently she is a full-time practicing artist and has exhibited in the US and abroad.
Artist Statement
I taught my painting students to mind “the forces before the horses” while creating a composition and to save the descriptions for later. Now, in my own work, color, directional forces, edge, movement, texture all create a tapestry of rhymes or discordances, until a cohesive whole is achieved, while mutant shapes are unearthed to interact within a dreamscape. Prehistoric plants, surreal trancelike figures marching in processions in unworldly mountains or forests offer a parallel world, or a warning of an aftermath.
Looking at narrative or mythical paintings from different cultures to analyze how the story is structured informs my work. Indian, Japanese, Flemish, Dutch, Baroque or early Renaissance Italian, early American, Grimm’s Fairy tales, Disney, Arp all offer inspiration for the visual language of story.
While our actual planetary survival is at stake, I paint to mirror our failures, polarities that freeze action and result in massive migration, drought, flooding, fires, starvation, and a circle of deadly outcomes.
Thousands of hours spent creating perceptual paintings on the streets of New York, Baltimore, Italy, France, Hungary and Haiti reflect my love for the outdoors and have provided me with building blocks for creating abstract narrative landscape paintings. The female figure often holds forth as a model of strength, even though she is misshapen, comically or in more macabre ways.
Other paintings lean more into abstraction for viewers to interpret and glean their own meaning.
EDUCATION
MFA, Yale School of Art, 1985, Honors
BS, New York University, 1983, Honors
NY Studio School, Drawing Marathon, Graham Nickson, NY, NY
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 AFTER ITALY, FROM LANDSCAPE TO ABSTRACTION, Galerie Hertz, Louisville, KY
2018 ODYSSEYS, Garner Narrative, 642 Market Street, Louisville
2013 PAINTING IN UMBRIA, Gallery 849, Louisville, KY
2012 PAINTINGS FROM UMBRIA, Gallery 849, Louisville, KY
2012 EXPLORATIONS, The Gallery at Whiskey Row Lofts, Louisville, KY
2002 LANDSCAPES, Alta Gallery, Rowayton, CT
1999 NEW WORK- LAURIE FADER, The Painting Center, New York, NY
1995 RECENT LANDSCAPES, 55 Mercer Gallery, New York, NY
TWO AND THREE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2023 DIGGING IN, Laurie Fader, Mary Proenza , Barbara Weissberger, Cody Gallery, Marymount University, Arlington, VA
2023 NOCTURNE, First Street Gallery, NY, NY juried by Susanna Coffey
2022 LUSCIOUS WASTELAND, paintings by Laurie Fader and Cathy Diamond, Radiator Gallery, Long Island City, NY
2016 SOMETHING GLIMPSED HEAD ON- PAINTINGS BY GWENDOLYN KERBER AND LAURIE FADER, 849 Gallery at Kentucky College of Art and Design, Louisville, KY
2015 PERCEPTIONS OF REALITY: PAINTINGS OF AMY WEISKOPF, LAURIE FADER AND AARON LUBRICK, 849 Gallery at Kentucky School of Art at Spalding University, Louisville, KY
2010 VISION AND MYTH, Stevenson University Gallery, Stevenson, MD
1994 CITY/COUNTRY, LAURIE FADER AND CHURCHILL DAVENPORT, Carriage Barn Gallery, CT
1991 FIGURING IT OUT; STORY AND SYMBOL IN RECENT FIGURATIVE PAINTING Curated by Nancy Grimes of Art News, Daniel P. Quinn Gallery, Long Island City, NY (catalog)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 SCRIBBLES, Carter Burden Gallery, Jurors: Amy Cheng & Lois Bender, 548 W 28th St, NY, NY
2017 CANDY FACTORY ARTISTS, studios on Floyd St., Louisville, KY
2017 JURIED SHOW FOR OPEN STUDIOS, Cressman Center, Louisville, KY
2016 STATE OF PAINTING, Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, Georgetown College, KY
2015 THE SARDONIC EYE: LOCKHART IN CONTEXT, The Allen Hite Art Institute Galleries, The Cressman Center, Louisville, KY. Curated by Peter Morrin
2014 13, Gallery 849, Louisville, KY
2013 PERCEPTUAL PAINTING, Gallery of International School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, Umbria, Italy
2012 LANDSCAPES OF ITALY, Gallery of International School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, Umbria, Italy
2010 SPECTRA: AN EXHIBITION OF FACULTY OF GOUCHER GOLLEGE, The Silber Gallery, Goucher College Athenaeum, Towson, MD
2007 SIGNIFICANTLY SMALL, Gallery 100, Saratoga Springs, NY 2007 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES, MFA Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD,
2007 NUDES, Antreasian Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2005 NEW PAINTING Gallery 100, Saratoga Springs, New York
2004 PEINTURES & SCULPTURES, Chateau de Rochefort-en-Terre, France
2001 ARTISTS OF THE SECOND DISTRICT, Federal Reserve Bank, NY, NY
2001 13th ANNUAL FACULTY EXHIBITION, Weill Art Gallery, NY, NY
2000 GROUP SHOW, Schaffler Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1998 GALLERY ARTISTS, Tabachman Gallery, New York, NY
1998 INVITED ARTISTS, Weill Art Gallery, 92nd St.Y, New York, NY
1997 BG4, Bowery Gallery, NY, NY Juror: William Bailey
1997 CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS, Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT
1997 ELEVEN FACES, The Painting Center, New York, NY, curated by Jenny Lynn McNutt
1997 IN TRIBUTE TO… Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT
1996 ART AND LIVING, Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT
1996 BY NATURE, Sound Shore Gallery, Cross River, NY
1996 SELF-PORTRAITS, HBO Gallery, New York, NY
1995 PAINTING TODAY, Erector Square Gallery, New Haven, CT Juror: William Bailey
1995 PAINTING THE HUDSON, Arts Alliance of Haverstraw, Village of Haverstraw, NY
1992 DRAWING ACROSS THE BOARD, Gudelsky Gallery, Silver Spring, MD
1989 12 INVITE 12, Hammond Museum, North Salem, NY
1987 PORTRAITS FROM THE NORTHEAST, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, CT Juror: Philip Pearlstein 1986 THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE, Women’s Caucus, Henry St. Settlement, NY
1982 SMALL WORKS, 80 Washington Square Gallery, NY, NY Juror: Nancy Hoffman
1981 SMALL WORKS, 80 Washington Square Gallery, NY, NY Juror: Marcia Tucker
HONORS AND AWARDS
2023 Willapa Bay AIR, Oysterville, Washington
2023 Jentel Foundation, Wyoming
2022 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst County, VA
2021 Great Meadows Foundation Artist Professional Development Grant
2018 Great Meadows Foundation Artist Professional Development Grant
2018 American Academy in Rome, Visiting Scholar
2017 Scuola Grafica di Venezia residency, Venice, Italy
2013 The International School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture in Italy residency
2012 The International School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture in Italy residency
2004 Alfred & Trafford Klots Artist Residency Program in France.
2002 Board of Trustees Artists Fellowship Award, New York, NY
2002 Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Assistance Grant
2000 Faculty Development Grant, Pratt Institute
2000 Pollock-Krasner Grant
1988 Painting Fellowship in Haiti sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C.
1985 Helen W. Winternitz Award for excellence in painting, Yale University
1983 Founder’s Day Award for academic excellence, New York University
PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA
“Cathy Diamond and Laurie Fader: The Romance of Painting”, Two Coats of Paint, September 28, 2022
“Luscious Wasteland: Cathy Diamond and Laurie Fader at Radiator Arts” Artspiel, September 24, 2022
“The Life of an Artist,” Life history interview conducted for doctoral research project; interview transcript and audio donated to University of Louisville Oral History Archives. March 20, 2021
“Re/visioning Female Resistance: Perseverance by Laurie Fader,” by Flora Schildknecht, The Louisville Review 89, Spring 2021
“Studio Visit”, Volume 45, 2019
Staff Pick, “Odysseys” by Laurie Fader, Leo weekly, December 2018
“Vignette: Laurie Fader- Open Studio Weekend Artist”, October 2017
“How to Make an Art School”, Louisville Magazine, November 27, 2017
Interview “Something Glimpsed” exhibition, ARTFM Radio, Oct 2015
“Kentucky School of Art”, 2013 Clay Cook on Vimeo
“Making the Landscape Your Own: Laurie Fader” by Karen Frankel, American Artist Magazine, July 2002 “Laurie Fader”, by Henrik Krogius, Brooklyn Heights Press, November 2000
“Cecily Kahn and Laurie Fader…” Ken Johnson, New York Times, May 7,1999
“Figuring It Out- Story and Symbol in Recent Figurative Painting”, Nancy Grimes of Art in America, 1991 catalogue for Daniel P. Quinn Gallery, LI City, NY
PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
2011-2018 Associate Professor, Co-founder and Chair of Kentucky College of Art and Design at Spalding University, Louisville, KY