If you are looking for direction, use a compass. That’s what Laura Battle did to guide her artistic process. One day sitting on a porch overlooking Rome at dusk, she was struck by the patterns of the swallows swarming overhead. The next day she bought a compass, inspired to plot their movements on paper. That impulse marked her commitment to using geometry as a primary force in her work. Laura’s work involves rigorous mapping out of a personal cosmogony. Her use of an intricate geometry describes a world of heightened order and emotive energy. Though some see mathematical concepts as fixed and at odds with the artistic process, Laura sees them as a catalyst for constructing what she calls “thought forms.” She aspires in her work to a kind of mental concentration that leads to essential language, symbols, and forms. The process is highly repetitive (some of the drawings have upwards of 4000 lines), yet it leads her in each piece to exciting optical effects and unexpected ends. “I take pleasure in arriving at timeless form through my own complex weaving of lines. Sacred form derived out of optical experience is a primary my goal for the viewer,” she says.
