LAURIE OXENFORD
Laurie Oxenford (b. 1997) is an early career Australian artist, curator and public art producer. Her adaptable multidisciplinary practice combines a range of contemporary art-making techniques including painting, assemblage, deconstruction and altering recycled industrial materials or found functional objects intended for public and private spaces. She considers how context establishes new dialogues between artworks, space and viewers.
Her work comments on the role of material in art, sustainability and different ways of constructing conceptual meaning. Oxenford explores waste facilities and industrial landscapes that offer recycled, functional items such as metal signs, industrial materials, and everyday objects, which direct and become the starting point for her creative process. She explores how the context for these objects affects their meaning and in turn, how they change the space they inhabit. Laurie’s practice incorporates the use of curatorial principles such as selection, space and installation.
Through referencing the Minimalist, Arte Povera and conceptual art movements, Laurie delves into the deconstruction and reconstruction of function, purpose and intention. Recently she began exploring fabrication, mechanical movement and digital elements within her practice.
Laurie completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Spatial Construction) at the University of Southern Queensland in 2018 before being awarded the Bellmaine French Appreciation Travelling Scholarship (2018). After relocating to the Gold Coast, Laurie was awarded the Judges Choice Award at Burleigh Brewing’s Brewing Local Artist program (2019) and a Professional Attachment with the City of Gold Coast (2019). She is currently working as the Public Art Officer for Art-Work Agency, Gold Coast and she was previously the Lead Curator at First Coat Studios, Toowoomba (2018-19). Laurie exhibited her fourth solo exhibition ‘Implied’ at The Third Quarter Gallery, Brisbane (2020) and was recently commissioned by Home of the Arts (HOTA), Gold Coast to realise a site-specific wall painting.