LAUREN SATLOWSKI

Early Years

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Lauren Satlowski grew up in the city’s suburbs, influenced by her family’s diverse interests. Her late father, a motorcycle-riding electrician, collected mechanical objects and guns, while her mother, a prosthodontist, made fake teeth from porcelain. She earned a BFA from Wayne State University in 2009 and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2013. After graduating, Satlowski relocated to Los Angeles, where she continues to live and work. Her early experiences collecting figurines and observing her mother’s meticulous dental work have shaped her approach to painting, emphasising both intimacy and precision.

Lauren Satlowski Artworks

Satlowski’s contemporary art practice centres on the transformation of found and personal objects—such as dolls, resin-encased flowers, and glass trinkets—into luminous, meticulously rendered oil paintings that blur the line between reality and illusion. Her works interrogate the emotional resonance and surreal potential of everyday things, often exploring themes of nostalgia, objectification, and the uncanny.

Early Figurative Works and Body Horror

Satlowski’s early paintings, created during her time at Cranbrook, focused on altered figurines and portraits that referenced body horror and cinematic tropes from science fiction and horror genres. These works explored the anxiety and power dynamics of the female body, drawing on influences such as Cronenberg and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Hyperreal Still Lifes and Surreal Assemblages

After moving to Los Angeles, Satlowski shifted her focus to still life, inspired by artists like Catherine Murphy. She began assembling and photographing collections of objects-compact discs, porcelain figurines, Ziploc bags, and glass paperweights—which she then meticulously paints with layers of transparency and reflection. Works such as those exhibited in Amateurs of Time, Epicures of Duration (Galerie Micki Meng, Paris, 2024) and A Cloth Over a Birdcage (Château Shatto, Los Angeles) exemplify her ability to elevate kitsch and mundane items into complex, psychologically charged tableaux.

Assemblage, Time, and Reflective Nostalgia

Satlowski’s more recent works engage with ideas of memory, time, and perception, often referencing motifs from art history and popular culture. Her paintings invite viewers to question the boundaries between object and subject, surface and meaning, and to consider the emotional lives of the things we collect and cherish.

Exhibitions, Awards, Accolades

• Work held in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, ICA Miami, and the Columbus Museum of Art.
• Featured in PRESENT ‘23: Building the Scantland Collection at Columbus Museum of Art.

Solo Exhibitions

• Amateurs of Time, Epicures of Duration, Galerie Micki Meng, Paris
• A Cloth Over a Birdcage, Château Shatto, Los Angeles
• Please Allow the Pipes to Function, Odd Ark LA, Los Angeles
• Office Baroque, Antwerp
• Bel Ami, Los Angeles
• DM Office, Paris

Group Exhibitions

• PRESENT ‘23: Building the Scantland Collection, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus
• When The Sun Loses Its Light, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
• Mad Monk, Micki Meng, New York
• Hot Concrete: LA to HK, Hong Kong
• Fiac, Paris

Further Reading

Satlowski’s art has been featured in leading publications including W Magazine and Artillery Magazine. According to W Magazine, ‘Satlowski turns personal treasures into fine art, pushing still-life painting into new territories of trompe l’oeil’.

Lauren Satlowski FAQs

Ocula | 2025