Laurie Shapiro creates all-encompassing, visually stimulating installations and individual pieces representing an amplification of her inner world. Being hard-of-hearing, her experience of the outer world is often muted. She primarily understands the world through visual stimuli and internal feelings, and this, in turn, colors all of her work. Shapiro’s internal emotional experiences manifest as psychedelic womb-like environments enveloping viewers in ecofeminist spaces of safety and care. She meticulously and meditatively labors over her work, handcrafting each element into painted pieces layered with sewing, screen printing, and sculpture. Paintings are particularly expressive, with subjects often using exaggerated gestures to communicate. Floral patterns and imagery are central to her artistic practice — drawings of plants that “speak” to her. Heavily informed by her internal and spiritual experiences, Shapiro’s work urges viewers to listen not through noise but through feeling and intuition.
Your work is visually loud—color, pattern, texture, light, figures, flowers everywhere—while you’ve described your experience of the outside world as becoming increasingly muted. Do those two things feel connected?
My work, and maybe one of my core beliefs as a human, is that by going inward, we can find so much knowledge, information, and answers. (I’m a meditator and pretty inclined towards Buddhism.) I feel overwhelmed and exhausted when I wear my hearing aids for long periods of time — I’m an introvert and spend lots of time alone. As an artist making work about going inward, knowing myself and my internal, spiritual experience, yes, I think hearing loss only amplifies this aspect of my existence, which makes its way into the work.
Your installations feel like something between a womb, a garden, a temple, and a psychedelic dream. What kinds of spaces are you trying to create for people emotionally?
I’m trying to make spaces that would make my inner child feel safe, cared for, and loved. I know what it is to feel out of place, and I want my spaces to give anyone who has ever felt that a sense of peace and safety.
Why did you move from making individual paintings into creating entire environments that viewers can physically enter? What became possible once the artwork surrounded the body?
I had a dream in college that basically gave me instructions to do this. I still do both — make individual pieces too. I’m very interested in expanding the medium and painting, and bringing it from an onlooker’s experience to participation.
You describe your installations as “psychedelic womb-like environments.” What does psychedelic mean to you—is it a visual language, a state of consciousness, a spiritual idea, an actual experience, or all of the above?
Yes, psychedelic can be all of those things. According to Google, the term means “mind-manifesting” or “soul-revealing.” I think that’s a pretty good description of where my work comes from.
Flowers and plant forms appear constantly throughout your work. You’ve said you draw plants that “speak” to you—what does that mean, and how do you translate that feeling into an image?
I have a very intuitive way about experiencing the world. Artmaking, for me, is a spiritual practice. The spiritual practice is the reason behind the work — being an artist is how I get to live in devotion to a spiritual life, take whatever experiences I have, and use active meditation (artmaking) to create something that can be experienced by others. You can listen to the world all around you – plants don’t speak with language; they speak with intuition. Let them speak and be open to listening without judgment.
Your work is extremely labor-intensive—painting, sewing, screen printing, sculpting, layering, and repeating forms. Does that repetitive process become meditative or even an altered state in itself?
Yes, the work itself is an active meditation. It is the greatest honor and joy for me to spend the majority of my time doing this work. I have been very conscious to live my life this way — it’s been the most important thing to me.
Your figures often communicate through dramatic gestures rather than words. Has being hard-of-hearing changed the way you understand body language and other forms of nonverbal communication?
Yes, you often assume what people are saying for day-to-day interactions. But I do get myself in trouble if I don’t wear my hearing aids when I should.
Your exhibition You Don’t Need to Hear to Listen has such a powerful title. What is the difference between hearing and listening to you?
There is so much noise, and I am so tired of loud, attention-seeking personalities getting so much focus just because they are loud. It’s not funny; it’s not even attractive. As I mentioned earlier, knowing comes from looking inward. You have to be able to face yourself and be quiet. If we can’t do that, all we do is project and create chaos.
You describe your work as creating ecofeminist spaces of safety and care. What does ecofeminism mean to you personally, and how does it manifest in the worlds you create?
My work is about stopping, slowing down, and looking inward. It draws inspiration from the natural world, and from my inner world — and when we think of ecofeminism, we can relate the natural world, Mother Earth, to the feminine womb of safety and care. Ecofeminism, to me, is about honoring this connection and seeing the earth as our mother, our home, our safety — to honor and respect, rather than something to consume. I think it benefits all of us to see each other’s humanity this way too — women, men, all people. There are a lot more predators when you’re a young woman, or even a girl, so we really need to build women up and honor this life-giving power that is our earth and is women.
Your installations seem capable of altering someone’s state simply through color, enclosure, pattern, light, and scale. Are you consciously trying to create a kind of altered state without requiring any substance at all?
Maybe, and I’d love for that to happen — really, if it brings people joy or connection or back to themselves, that’s the most I can ask for. However, I’m OK with however people want to experience the work. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me they want to do shrooms inside of my space or asked me if I trip to make my work. I’m just naturally psychedelic!
