Laura J. Padgett explores unoccupied spaces, both real and imaginary, to reveal truths that are often overlooked. She travels along the complex interfaces between memory and the present, between private and public, between nature and culture.
Read MoreLike her subject, her photography and film inhabit the spaces between photographic storytelling and installation, language and image, history and current affairs. While she works within photographic media, the results are always more than photographic objects.
Laura J. Padgett (b. 1958 in Cambridge, USA) received her BFA in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She continued her studies in film and photography with Peter Kubelka and Herbert Schwöbel at the Städelschule from 1983 to 1985 and received her MA in Art History and Aesthetics in 1994 from the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University, both in Frankfurt am Main.
Since the 1990s Laura J. Padgett has produced a complex body of work. She exhibits widely, while also participating in international film screenings, at, for example, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Bologna, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Pharos Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia, and Museum Giersch, Frankfurt am Main.
In addition to her exhibiting activities, the artist regularly writes on film, art and aesthetic theory. Since 1990 she has taught and lectured at various universities among them Bauhaus-University in Weimar, Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach, Paderborn University and the Hochschule-Rhein-Main in Wiesbaden. Most recently she lectured at the German Jordanian University in Amman. Laura J. Padgett lives and works in Frankfurt am Main.
Her work is held in various major public and private collections, including Städel Museum, Graphics Collection, Frankfurt am Main, Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, Fotomuseum Winterthur, DZ BANK Art Collection, Frankfurt am Main, Museum of Modern Art, Museion, Bozen, The Sir John Soane Museum, London, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Dommuseum, Mainz, Museum Simeonstift, Trier, Museum Wiesbaden, as well as other institutions.
Text courtesy Galerie—Peter—Sillem.
