Lauren Fensterstock facts for kids

Lauren Fensterstock is an American artist, writer, and teacher. She also works as a curator, which means she helps organize art shows. Lauren lives and works in Portland, Maine. Her art has been shown in many places across the United States. You can find her work in public and private art collections in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Learning and Teaching Art

Lauren Fensterstock studied art at two different colleges. She earned her first art degree, a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), from Parsons School of Design in New York in 1997. Later, she received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from SUNY-New Paltz in 2000.

Today, Lauren teaches art at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She works in the graduate program for Jewelry and Metalsmithing. She has also taught at other art schools, like the Maine College of Art. For a few years, she was even the Academic Director for the MFA program at the Maine College of Art.

Artistic Creations and Series

Lauren Fensterstock is known for creating art that explores nature and how people see it. She often uses unusual materials in her work.

Early Works: Precious Heirlooms (2004-2010)

In her early art, Lauren used her skills from studying metalsmithing and jewelry. She made pieces that looked at ideas of beauty and how things change over time. For her series called Precarious Heirlooms, she used everyday items like potatoes, bananas, and soap. She would then add precious stones and pearls to these items.

The interesting part was how these pieces changed. The soap would dry and crack, the potatoes would shrink, and the bananas would rot. Lauren took pictures of these changes, calling them What Happens. This showed how even beautiful things can change and decay.

Exploring Nature: Third Nature (2007-2014)

Lauren's series Third Nature used a technique called quilling. This is where you curl and shape thin strips of paper to make detailed designs. She combined this with materials like Plexiglas and charcoal. Her art often looked like enclosed, miniature gardens or natural scenes.

This series was inspired by her own garden and how people try to control or shape nature. She researched how people have designed landscapes throughout history. Her Third Nature artworks are often dark or black, showing her unique view of nature.

Large-Scale Art: Installations (2008-2014)

Building on her Third Nature ideas, Lauren started creating much larger artworks. These were called Installations. They were often made for specific places, like museums or galleries. She showed these big pieces at places like the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

These larger works allowed her to explore new ideas. She was influenced by other artists who made big, simple art (like Donald Judd) and artists who worked with the land itself (like Robert Smithson).

Mysterious Caves: Grottoes (2014-2018)

In this series, Lauren's art changed from delicate paper designs to something more dramatic. She started making "cavernous pieces" that looked like stalagmites and stalactites. These are the rock formations found in caves.

She was inspired by old garden grottoes, which are artificial caves built in gardens. These grottoes mix nature with human design. For this series, Lauren used new materials. Instead of paper, she used shells covered in black rubber. This made her cave-like sculptures look dark and mysterious. Her first piece in this series, Stalagmite, was shown in 2015.

Recent Work: The totality of time lusters the dusk (2019–present)

In 2020, Lauren was asked to create a special artwork for an exhibition called Forces of Nature at the Smithsonian museum. Her piece was titled The totality of time lusters the dusk. This artwork was inspired by an old book from the 1500s called the Augsburg Book of Miracles.

Art Shows and Exhibitions

Lauren Fensterstock's art has been shown in many exhibitions. Here are some of them:

Solo Exhibitions

• 2015 Lauren Fensterstock, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
• 2015 Stalagmite, PULSE Project at PULSE, NY, NY
• 2014 New Work, Lauren Fensterstock, Independent Art Projects, North Adams, MA
• 2014 Preparatory Drawings, Aucocisco, Portland, ME
• 2013 Lauren Fensterstock, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA
• 2013 The Celebration of Formal Effects, Whether Natural or Artificial, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI
• 2011 Incidents of Garden Displacement, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME
• 2010 Mound, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA
• 2010 Of Groves, Labyrinths, Dedals, Cabinets, Cradles, Close-Walks, Galleries, Pavilions, Portico's, Lanterns, and Other Relievo's: of Topiary and Hortulan Architecture, Walker Contemporary, Boston, MA
• 2009 New Projects, Washington Art Association, Washington Depot, CT
• 2008 Parterre, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
• 2008 Unearthed, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA
• 2007 A Third Nature, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME
• 2006 Lauren Fensterstock, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME
• 2005 Dearest, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME
• 2004 Castles in Spain, The Hay Gallery, Portland, ME
• 2003 Precious Heirlooms, Center For Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
• 2001 Otherwise Portraits, Edward Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI

Two or Three Person Exhibitions

• 2014 Lauren Fensterstock and Susie Ganch, PULSE Miami, with Sienna Patti Contemporary
• 2011 Two Takes: One Space, Lauren Fensterstock and Steve Wiman, Austin Contemporary, Austin, TX
• 2011 Lauren Fensterstock and John Bisbee, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME
• 2008 Lauren Fensterstock, Dylan McManus, Justin Novak, Dorsky Gallery, Long Island City, NY
• 2002 Decisions & Revisions: Lauren Fensterstock & Aaron T Stephan, Hay Gallery, Portland, ME
• 2000 Fairy Tale: Roy Kortik, Rachel Sekelman, Lauren Fensterstock, Elsa Mott Ives Gallery, NY, NY

Group Exhibitions

• 2015 Directors Cut, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
• 2014 Recurrence, Fridman Gallery, New York, NY
• 2014 Surface, Stephen D. Paine Gallery at Mass Art, Boston, MA
• 2013 Piecework, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
• 2012 Dubh: Dialogues in Black, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
• 2012 Maine Biennial, Center For Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
• 2012 Maine Women Pioneers, University of New England, Portland, ME
• 2011 Dubh: Dialogues in Black, American Irish Historical Society, New York, NY
• 2011 Buds, Blooms, & Berries: Plants in Science, Culture, & Art, Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA
• 2011 Decadence and Disarray, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA
• 2011 Field of Vision: Artists Explore Place, Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
• 2010 Sacred and Profane, Portsmouth Museum of Fine Art, Portsmouth, NH
• 2008 The Thinking Body, Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 The Thinking Body, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, OR
• 2008 New Natural History, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
• 2007 In Situ, Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery, Mass Art, Boston, MA
• 2007 Laced With History, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI
• 2007 Marriage of True Minds, University of New England Art Gallery, Portland, ME
• 2006 Landscapes 2006, Beach Hill Farm, College of the Atlantic, Mount Desert Isle, ME
• 2006 Maine Biennial, Center For Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
• 2005 Everything But Paper Prayers, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, MA
• 2005 Precious Little, Albany International Airport, Albany, NY
• 2005 Touchstones, Blum Gallery, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, ME
• 2005 Portland Biennial, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
• 2004 Exposing Scarlet, The Mills Gallery, Boston Center For the Arts, Boston, MA
• 2004 Exquisite Corpse, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME

Where Her Art Is Kept

Lauren Fensterstock's art is part of several public collections, meaning you can see her work in these places:

• Portland Museum of Art
• Bowdoin College Museum of Art
• Fidelity Maine General Medical Center
• Ogunquit Museum of American Art
• Tiffany & Co
• University of Maine Museum of Art

Awards and Honors

Lauren Fensterstock has received several awards for her art:

• Named one of the Top Nine Artists under 40 in Miami by Artsy, 2014
• Artist Fellowship from the Maine Arts Commission, 2010
• Good Idea Grant from the Maine Arts Commission, 2004, 2006, 2008
• Creative Project Award from SUNY New Paltz, 1999
• Graduate Fellowship from SUNY New Paltz, 1999
• Pearl Scharf Scholarship, 1993