2022 Senior Exhibition Artists 2022 Senior Exhibition Artists: Gwen Laws

About Gwen Laws

Gwen Laws is a graphic designer from Somerville, Massachusetts. They are graduating from the College of Visual and Performing Arts with their BFA in Graphic Design in May of 2022. Their love for art began at a very young age, constantly being exposed to different mediums and artists through their grandmothers and their father. Their biggest inspiration recently has been introspection, and believes that you can learn so much about yourself and the people around you through writing and making art and design. Gwen loves using color and texture in their work and loves trying out new and interesting styles. They are always looking for new techniques and new mediums to try, and believe that they will never be done learning.

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Statement

[REDACTED] began as a way to process my grief surrounding my nana Sylvia’s passing when I was in high school. I never had the time to stop and actually let myself feel anything about it, and I thought the high stress final semester of college would just be the perfect place. The project quickly became about more than just my grandmother, as I realized that I could not fully process her death because I did not have many memories of my time with her, or my childhood as a whole.

My memory problems extend beyond childhood, though not as severely, and I struggle with remembering smaller things day to day. I realized that these problems were getting worse with stress, both from the pandemic, and the stress of my senior year. I wanted to share my experience with memory in a way that helped me to come to terms with my own issues, and hopefully process others.

The idea of sharing experiences was a huge part of this for me. I didn’t want to interview specific people and include their responses as part of the book because I wanted that part of the project to be my own experiences and a place to process my own shit. I wanted to create a space for viewers to respond to the book and also share some of their memories with me. The roll of paper was my solution to this, as it is an impermanent place to share these things.

The images on the wall surrounding the roll are images and objects that hold memory for me, both good and bad, and I wanted to include them. Even though they did not all make it into the book, they are still important to me and I wanted to give the viewer the sense that they are stepping into my mind and leaving something behind with their responses. It is my hope that this project can open the conversation for other people to talk about their own memory, and share their experiences.

Contact

Email: contact@gwenlaws.net
@art.laws