Join us for an evening conversation with fine art photographer Lauren Ceike discussing her Griffin exhibition, Sequin Fix, on July 9th at 7pm Eastern.
This conversation is free to all. Held online on our Zoom platform, for your safety and the safety of others, we will be asking you to register for the event. We will have a waiting list in case of a full house.
About Sequin Fix –
I never knew that drug bags were drug bags.
I see them on the ground everywhere I go: nice neighborhoods, “bad” neighborhoods, big cities, and family-friendly parks in small towns. I always thought they were for craft supplies, hardware, buttons, etc. I didn’t question their purpose, I knew exactly what they were, until it hit me one day. I suppose my naiveté should be embarrassing, but I think it’s endearing.
My family has been haunted by drug abuse for more than half my life. In some ways my adolescence was robbed from me. Memories I thought didn’t exist suddenly came to me when I discovered the truth of these bags; I now recall a bag floating in my family’s pool, at the time I figured it was for nuts & bolts. Most of the items I put in these bags are things I have saved from childhood, I often tried to limit use of things special to me as a way to preserve them. Even as a kid I felt nostalgia for being a kid; maybe I somehow knew innocence wasn’t as easy to hang on to as I hoped.
The bags in this collection were predominately acquired from the streets in the city where I live, Providence, Rhode Island. There are a few from exciting places like NYC and Miami, and, unsurprising to me, from my small hometown of Townsend, Massachusetts. – LC
About Lauren Ceike –
Creating artwork for me is deeply personal and perhaps selfish. It is therapy, a compulsion to create something as a way to express a feeling. Often and regrettably my work is never seen by others, but it has performed its purpose and I feel satisfied. I want it to be appealing to other people, of course, but I’m not always sure if it is. In this way I feel like a true artist: I process emotions and experiences through art. While my formal education is in photography, I enjoy using any medium that I feel best helps me reach a destination, including performance, which can be difficult for a person like me who considers herself shy. One of my personal artistic philosophies is to make creations that little kids would have fun looking at. I am attracted to bright colors, kitsch, and silliness, and I’m happy for my viewers to enjoy those things on a surface level, yet with a closer look there is more to be revealed. My work is typically variations on the themes of family and nostalgia, and may suggest sadness, though I like to think of it more as heavy-hearted. I often have the sense of missing someone or something, even in the presence of those things.
I received a BFA in Fine Art Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2004. I currently reside in Providence, RI where I work a day job as a devoted animal caregiver. – LC
