Meet Laura Sanders, a painter whose work explores the inseparable relationship between the human figure and the natural world. Through immersive compositions of water, light, and landscape, Sanders reveals how the environment shapes us — literally and visually — leaving …
Read more
Laura Sanders
Long Island City, NY and Columbus, OH
Painting
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Biography
Laura Sanders (b. 1966, Detroit, MI) is a painter who lives and works in Columbus, OH, and maintains a studio in Long Island City, NY. She received her BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 1988.
In 2025, her work was the subject of the mid-career survey Laura Sanders: Force of Nature at The Contemporary Dayton, Dayton, OH.
Recent solo exhibitions include Survivor Skills, Beeler Gallery, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH, 2026; Her Habitat, Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH, 2024; and Shifting Baselines, Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH, 2021. In 2022, she curated and exhibited work in the group exhibition To Die For at Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH.
Her work has been included in Beyond the Present: Collecting for the Future, The Christine Mack Collection, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY; Here’s Looking at You, Plato Gallery, New York, NY; Belonging: The Long Island City Studio Collective, Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH; Rewilding, Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Playful Perspectives: Staff Reflections on Play, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; The Scenic Route, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; Shape of an Image, curated by Sasha Bogojev, Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong; and Xenia: Crossroads in Portrait Painting, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY.
Haystack Perspective
Laura Sanders combines two classical painting genres, landscape and figuration. By putting (typically female) subjects in gorgeous oceans, lakes, and swimming pools, Sanders can paint her favorite element; water. The artist appreciates the reciprocal relationship that we have with the environment, and the degradation we have caused as a species. In Sanders’ words, “When we change the environment, we change ourselves.” So Sanders captures the beauty of the environment, painting with oil paint, applying wet paint into wet paint. The artist refers to photographs extensively, not with a mind to replicate the images, but to capture their essential brilliance.
From the Artist
“My paintings focus on the exploration of the human form in the out of doors. By presenting the figure immersed in the landscape, I examine the impact and implications of our environs.”