While exploring Ladew Topiary Garden’s 22 acres of gardens and the historic Manor House, sculptor-in-residence, Laura Amussen found herself reminded of Mother Nature’s unwieldy propensity to consume abandoned or unattended structures and objects. In the Oval Library, a single sprig of ivy creeps through a grate on the floor. Visible through the window—just beyond the threshold—the ivy blankets the ground. Its presence threatening to overtake the inlaid drop-leaf gaming table and side chairs before making its way to the oval partner’s desk. One can easily imagine—if given time—the ivy swallowing these interior relics whole, as Mother Nature creates topiaries of Her own. Amussen’s piece Checkmate brings this playful fantasy to life. Artificial ivy spreads across the floor and over the furniture, leaving visible only traces of the structures beneath.

Taking cues from the ivy infiltrating the Oval Library, but also inspired by the follys, gardens, and topiaries found in Ladew’s gardens, Oval Library Topiary Folly, delightfully brings the inside out, a merger of both landscape and architecture. A large oval gazebo provides the framework for this structure, as again artificial ivy and flowers overtake the building. Most of these artificial flowers were bought second-hand, a deliberate choice by the artist. By using artificial plastic plant material Amussen hopes to draw attention to our worlds ecological concerns regarding plastic consumption and pollution.

Inspired by the abundance of seedpods that blanket Ladew’s Wildflower Meadow, Amussen renders the seed larger than life and draws parallels between nature and femininity, in her piece, Embedded in the seed is the blossom waiting to unfold.

"There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself." -Brian Andreas

Our current cultural and political climate is fraught with tension, our lives increasingly more stressful, and the world more hectic. These truths demand our constant effort and attention. Thus, it’s important - and difficult – to take time to replenish our mental, physical, and emotional reservoirs. Nature offers humanity reprieve and provides pictorial and poetic narratives: a moss blanket comforts a broken soul; a nest bursts from and engulfs a birdcage; a large-scale, site-specific, wall mounted mandala comprised of a thousand golden lotus seedpods begs the viewers to find stillness in contemplation; a wall of multicolored baskets symbolize our need to constantly hold and care for ourselves, especially when difficult life experiences arise; and, two smaller mandalas – one made of seeds, the other of Bodhi (ficus religiosa) leaf skeletons – speak of ritual and meditation. Transformed into visual expressions, materials become metaphor for these psychological associations. Each work relies on the repetition and expansion of a fundamental unit to explore the relationship of the physical to the psychological. In all the works, less is more. Spare forms and conceptual innuendo swiftly carry each work into the bio-philosophic. They establish connections between the inside and outside of the body and mind to consider our larger relationship to the natural world. The organic matter featured in this body of work metaphorically symbolize our collective human fragility; our need to be cared for and healed.

"There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself." -Brian Andreas

Our current cultural and political climate is fraught with tension, our lives increasingly more stressful, and the world more hectic. These truths demand our constant effort and attention. Thus, it’s important - and difficult – to take time to replenish our mental, physical, and emotional reservoirs. Nature offers humanity reprieve and provides pictorial and poetic narratives: a moss blanket comforts a broken soul; a nest bursts from and engulfs a birdcage; a large-scale, site-specific, wall mounted mandala comprised of a thousand golden lotus seedpods begs the viewers to find stillness in contemplation; a wall of multicolored baskets symbolize our need to constantly hold and care for ourselves, especially when difficult life experiences arise; and, two smaller mandalas – one made of seeds, the other of Bodhi (ficus religiosa) leaf skeletons – speak of ritual and meditation. Transformed into visual expressions, materials become metaphor for these psychological associations. Each work relies on the repetition and expansion of a fundamental unit to explore the relationship of the physical to the psychological. In all the works, less is more. Spare forms and conceptual innuendo swiftly carry each work into the bio-philosophic. They establish connections between the inside and outside of the body and mind to consider our larger relationship to the natural world. The organic matter featured in this body of work metaphorically symbolize our collective human fragility; our need to be cared for and healed.

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace" -Kate Chopin, The Awakening

As the former director of exhibitions and curator at Goucher College, I gained invaluable experience and insight pertinent to artistic and curatorial practice. As an artist, I brought that knowledge with me to the cavernous main gallery space of Baltimore's Creative Alliance. By applying a curatorial approach to my artwork, I used the gallery as a laboratory through which to experiment with process and work through ideas. This work came from an honest, tender and vulnerable place. AFLOAT is the culmination of my personal experiences over a 75 month period, including the end of a 17 year marriage, coming to terms with my sexuality, and the death of my mother. By way of sculpture, site-specific installation, photography, projection, video, and performance AFLOAT gives physical expression to what it means to carry mental and emotional baggage--the psychological jumble we accumulate, the worries, the burdens, the weight. Using water and a wide variety of elements associated with water, the works symbolize struggle and survival; they speak to being saved and saving oneself.

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace" -Kate Chopin, The Awakening

As the former director of exhibitions and curator at Goucher College, I gained invaluable experience and insight pertinent to artistic and curatorial practice. As an artist, I brought that knowledge with me to the cavernous main gallery space of Baltimore's Creative Alliance. By applying a curatorial approach to my artwork, I used the gallery as a laboratory through which to experiment with process and work through ideas. This work came from an honest, tender and vulnerable place. AFLOAT is the culmination of my personal experiences over a 75 month period, including the end of a 17 year marriage, coming to terms with my sexuality, and the death of my mother. By way of sculpture, site-specific installation, photography, projection, video, and performance AFLOAT gives physical expression to what it means to carry mental and emotional baggage--the psychological jumble we accumulate, the worries, the burdens, the weight. Using water and a wide variety of elements associated with water, the works symbolize struggle and survival; they speak to being saved and saving oneself.

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace" -Kate Chopin,The Awakening

As the former director of exhibitions and curator at Goucher College, I gained invaluable experience and insight pertinent to artistic and curatorial practice. As an artist, I brought that knowledge with me to the cavernous main gallery space of Baltimore's Creative Alliance. By applying a curatorial approach to my artwork, I used the gallery as a laboratory through which to experiment with process and work through ideas. This work came from an honest, tender and vulnerable place. AFLOAT is the culmination of my personal experiences over a 75 month period, including the end of a 17 year marriage, coming to terms with my sexuality, and the death of my mother. By way of sculpture, site-specific installation, photography, projection, video, and performance AFLOAT gives physical expression to what it means to carry mental and emotional baggage--the psychological jumble we accumulate, the worries, the burdens, the weight. Using water and a wide variety of elements associated with water, the works symbolize struggle and survival; they speak to being saved and saving oneself.

Influenced by environmental concerns as well as the rapaciousness of globalization these works encompass aspects of landscape and architecture in order to create metaphors of psychological space. In an increasingly globalized culture, a growing sense of placelessness makes it more and more difficult for us to place our own identity. These works are studies of geographic dislocation and its attendant complexities, as well as antidotes to the prevailing need to belong somewhere. In creating fictitious environments wrought with familiar details from built structures and the natural landscape the work is encoded with social and emotional values. In my restructuring of these elements, the familiar becomes unfamiliar, leading us to re-evaluate our sense of place in this energetic, overbuilt, and complex world. These fictitious environments blur the boundaries between landscape and architecture and scramble the distinctions between organic and synthetic. Ambiguous in nature they explore the experience of place - the accumulated life experiences of geographical places and psychological spaces.

These sculptures and installations are informed by an awareness of the body; it’s functions, residuals, memories and emotions. Transformed into visual expressions, materials become metaphor for these anatomical and psychological associations. Each work relies on repetition and expansion of a fundamental unit to explore the relationship of the physical to the psychological. In all the works, less is more. Spare forms, and conceptual innuendo swiftly carry each work into the bio-philosophic, investigating the connections between the inside and outside of the body and mind. Content, material, process, and form are united creating sculptures and installations that provoke a strong visceral response.

These fictitious environments blur the boundaries between landscape and architecture and scramble the distinctions between organic and synthetic. Ambiguous in nature they explore the experience of place - the accumulated life experiences of geographical places and psychological spaces.Influenced by environmental concerns as well as the rapaciousness of globalization my work has evolved to encompass aspects of landscape and architecture in order to create metaphors of psychological space. In an increasingly globalized culture, a growing sense of placelessness makes it more and more difficult for us to place our own identity. My new works are studies of geographic dislocation and its attendant complexities, as well as antidotes to the prevailing need to belong somewhere. I create fictitious environments wrought with familiar details from built structures and the natural landscape that are encoded with social and emotional values. In my restructuring of these elements, the familiar becomes unfamiliar, leading us to re-evaluate our sense of place in this energetic, overbuilt, and complex world. Ambiguous in nature they explore the experience of place - the accumulated life experiences of geographical places and psychological spaces.