A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Laura Davis, an adult person with a fair skin tone, medium-short blonde hair, and glasses, standing in a studio space.

Laura Davis

Professor, Adjunct

Bio

Laura Davis is a studio artist whose work explores notions of social and material value through drawing, sculpture, and installation. Solo exhibitions include 65GRAND (Chicago), the Wright Museum of Art (Beloit, Wisconsin), the Chicago Cultural Center, the Elmhurst Art Museum, the Chicago Artists Coalition, and threewalls (Chicago). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Ortega Y Gassett (Brooklyn),  King’s Leap (New York), Luminary (St. Louis), The Soap Factory (Minneapolis), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago). Davis’s work has been featured in Art in America, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Art21 Blog, ArtSlant, and Newcity. She earned her MFA from the University of Chicago in 2004 and her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1996.

Personal Statement

Laura Davis creates sculpture, drawing and installation in order to disrupt notions of value at the intersections of art, design and craft. Her interest lies in the endgame of material goods and how manipulating context can alter that narrative.

 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers.

In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership.

Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1367

Credits

3

Description

Core Studio is a year-long course that introduces students to both disciplinary and interdisciplinary art practice. Students learn about the methods, materials, tools and concepts in the areas of Surface (2-dimensional), Space (3-dimensional), and Time (4-dimensional), both independently and in relationship to one another. Students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials and themes being presented by faculty. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, historical with the contemporary, and makes visible the possibilities and variety of approaches in contemporary cultural production.

Class Number

1433

Credits

3

Description

Core Studio is a year-long course that introduces students to both disciplinary and interdisciplinary art practice. Students learn about the methods, materials, tools and concepts in the areas of Surface (2-dimensional), Space (3-dimensional), and Time (4-dimensional), both independently and in relationship to one another. Students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials and themes being presented by faculty. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, historical with the contemporary, and makes visible the possibilities and variety of approaches in contemporary cultural production.

Class Number

1255

Credits

3

Description

The continuation of Core Studio Practice I.

Class Number

1256

Credits

3

Description

In this course, we will put our phones on airplane mode, leave laptops and tablets at home, and make a conscious decision to go offline. Research will be approached as a tactile, observational, and experiential process. We will touch books, explore archives, talk to people, visit places, and examine and manipulate things as primary tools of inquiry. This is not an anti-technology class but a class about being present during our time together. Sketchbooks and material archives will be emphasized. Together we will practice making, noticing, and questioning, finding meaning in attention, process, and connection¿offline.

Class Number

1205

Credits

3