TAWA at 45
The Exhibition
Laurel Daunis-Allen
Aspicio No.2
ink on watercolor paper, foam core, 2019; 12″h x 12″w
Laurel Daunis-Allen’s (www.ldaunisallen.com) main inspiration to pursue visual arts came from her aunt who was a painter. At family events, she would find herself up in her aunt’s studio looking at all the art supplies and paintings and wanting to know more about what this was all about.
As a young artist, she found herself experimenting with different mediums, but was particularly drawn to ink and watercolor. These mediums she would later come back to as a more seasoned artist. Daunis-Allen completed a one-year undergraduate studies in art and design at Beaver College (PA), then went on to receive a BFA in graphic design from the University of Bridgeport (CT). At that point, Daunis-Allen’s focus was on pursuing a career in illustration and graphic design, which took her out of the area, but gave her opportunities to design for companies such as Business Week Magazine, Forbes Magazine, Bantam Books in New York, the Los Angeles Times in California, and The Financial Mail on Sunday Newspaper in London (UK). During this time, she still tried to keep up her fine art and continued to exhibit when possible. She was very happy to have four pieces accepted into the 1981 TAWA Eyes on Trenton exhibit, and was especially excited that one of those pieces, a large portrait of her grandparents was chosen to hang in the NJ State Museum. She has had work regularly accepted in the Ellarslie Open, receiving the 2016 Jerry’s Artarama Award, Runner Up, Drawing and the Jack Richeson Award, Runner Up, Drawing. Some other local and regional juried shows she has been accepted in are Mercer County Artists 2019 at the MCCC Gallery; PaperWorks 2018, the Upstream Gallery, Hastings-on- Hudson (NY); Compendium: {Land}scapes 2018, the Crayola Gallery, Bethlehem (PA); and Watercolors: Traditional to Modern 2017, The Monmouth Museum, Lincroft (NJ). From 1991-1994, Daunis-Allen was represented by the Tabor Gallery, Boston, MA, and from 2018-present, the Green Lion Gallery, Bath, ME.
“My current work focuses on the big, bold rocks found up in Maine. You will see that instead of painting rocks as part of a landscape, they are the landscape. The paintings can sometimes take on an abstract quality depending on how much or little detail is included and how close up to the rock’s surface I go. With some, I have cut them up and re-arranged the pieces to create rhythm and energy.”