Laura Nicholson is an American/British artist based in London receiving their BA in Art and Psychology from Reading University. Their practice includes comics, installation, writing and sculpture taking place in both traditional gallery settings as well as emerging online communities. Their research investigates sovereignty, BDSM, embodiment, gender and psychoanalysis, often engaging with the writings of Berardi, Preciado and Bataille.
Laura Nicholson
Warning: This work contains mature or explicit content.
Click to Enter
Medium:
installationSize:
variable
Venus in Shale (American crude uncut) continues a longstanding interest in sexuality (kink in particular) and narratives of authority and power. I have also been drawn to work that sits somewhere between the art object and personal artefact, as it highlights both the potential for the object to become useful and the extractive nature of the gallery space in de-utilising spectacle. The sculptures are influenced by the Victorian practise of making hair jewellery as a memorial object. Barbie blond plastic replaces the dead lover’s hair (petroleum mourning). The dicks, the hair, all are incomplete bodies, sexual prosthesis both feminine and masculine. The archive is replaced by fragments of the major arcana, scraped for detritus and left to be picked clean.