Research and community are always at the heart of Laurus Myth’s (‘09, BFA Painting & Art) art practice. The San Francisco based creative found success across the Bay Area and is sharing her excitement for her upcoming shows.
Running through April 27th, Portals & Passages: An evolution of Paintings, Sculptures, and Social Magic, is her first solo exhibition in a museum setting opened January 25th at the Triton Museum of Art (1505 Warburton Ave, Santa Clara, CA). The art spans disciplines including sculpture and painting as a channel to express her visual language influenced by nature, architecture and intuition.
Myth grew up in the Silicon Valley with a younger sibling, and two much younger half-siblings. At University of California, Santa Cruz she focused on painting and found work at the woodshop on campus. Her part time job at the Art Department Woodshop, became one of the biggest influences in her career. These hands-on art practices led her to continue building with confidence, and furthermore teaching others how to use fabrication tools for artmaking. She currently works at California College of the Arts as the MFA Studio Manager.
Through UCSC’s Study Abroad Program, Myth Credits her time in New Zealand as one of the most impactful parts of her education, Myth says, “They really took art making as almost like a lab or a science or research base. if you didn’t have all of this data and collected information as to why you made this work, that in a way, it wasn’t yours.”
Myth took this emphasis on research and utilized it to acquire other degrees and certifications after she graduated from UC Santa Cruz. While working on a marketing certificate, she attended a class on graphic design and fell in love with it. Afterward, Myth integrated elements of computer design into her art, often taking 2D art and pulling it into the 3D realm through technology. In 2017, Myth completed an MFA in Studio Art from the San Francisco Art Institute. She continues to take classes when she can, to build on her teaching practice, and studio work.
Though she started her career in painting, she veered away from it for several years. Myth loves to focus on immersive art pieces that also embody social magic (a term she coined for her art “because it’s more about the personal, the vulnerable, the emotional” while also emphasizing social practice and activism). Her 2016 project, The Junction Keep, illuminated San Francisco crosswalks with high fatality rates and used conversation and brochures to help raise awareness through immersive art.
Recently Myth started renting a studio in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood to fulfill and complete all of her 2D work. It’s the first space of its kind she has had given that her career managing workshops always provided her space for her work.
Myth’s upcoming projects for the year include two grant funded immersive pieces. The first is a $30,000 grant from the San Francisco Art Commission to create an interactive mobile installation. The second is a grant of over $100,000 focused on temporary public art that meets people in random spaces.
“I started creating these multifaceted, social magic, interactive works because the more access points you can create into a piece, the more ways it will be received,” says Myth. “You lure them in with the visuality of the work, and then you engage with them. It requires someone to play the role, to create the connections, and you can only learn and see the whole picture when you’re led through it in that way.”
Myth will be coming to campus on February 12th to give a presentation in the Seminar Room at 12pm that day. “I’m always secretly trying to find my way back to UC Santa Cruz.”