Mimi Lauter
American, 1982-

Sense Four, 2009
soft pastel, oil pastel, oil paint on paper
89 x 67 in.

SBMA, gift of Marc Selwyn
2023.47.1



Lauter beside a silk floss tree, its rugged, thorny trunk juxtaposed with Eden climbing rose and Abutilon. Portrait copyright Architectural Digest 2024

“I thought of the human body and its relationship to the physical; and still life and mortality; and a landscape with its relationship ties to a journey or a path one takes while moving through life – meandering toward an unknown destination, often seen without purpose but always with consequence.” - Mimi Lauter

RESEARCH PAPER

Mimi Lauter’s paintings are abstract narratives of soft pastels, oil pastels, and oil paint. She frequently covers the entire paper with oil pastels, creating a color-saturated layered texture ground; her expressive brushwork establishes a botanical world.

As we look at Sense Four, one’s eye is drawn to the left-hand side of her canvas, where we see a mound of reddish fuchsia. Is this mound a bunch of leaves that have fallen from the trees above or a crater inviting an opening to deeper introspection? Lauter’s work often features biomorphic forms that blend into each other. Her shapes may resemble plants or bodily forms. However, they remain abstract, inviting the viewer to make their interpretation. A layering component creates an illusion of different planes, almost three-dimensional. She uses different hues of green, blue, purple, yellow, and hints of red, blending and contrasting with each other to create a sense of movement. Her landscapes are not placed in time or location. Lauter has commented that using pastels is like working with clay, as the malleability enables her to shape the images through an intuitive process. She remarks that her use of color is conceived similarly, intuitively, and informed by history and culture (White Cube). She credits learning to paint by studying European paintings: “Much of my knowledge of European history as a young adult was from studying history through the images depicted in paintings… it wasn't just the facts and stories but also the emotional, psychological and aesthetic impact. In other words, the history of human nature rather than just the history of human events has become my lens from which I view politics, the social world, and the personal” (Lauter, 2023).

Perhaps that speaks to her fascination with 19th and 20th-century European paintings, such as Odilon Redon, Pierre Bonnard, and Jean-Edouard Vuillard’s (White Cube). Lauter has said she was influenced by the surrealist painters Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varos for their surreal imagery and rich colors.

Lauter was born in San Francisco. Her mother was an artist who owned a textile company, and her father was a research scientist and teacher. As a child, she lived in Israel. Her parents’ extensive garden in Marin County and her grandparent’s passion for art collecting art significantly impacted her (Rus, 2024). She moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of California, Los Angeles, where she received her BA. She received her MFA from the University of Irvine in 2010.

Lauter’s garden continues to inspire her work; she and her garden were recently featured in Architectural Digest (September 2024): “When you are a painter, you never really finish anything. You just move on to another painting, another idea… I planted things to bloom in waves. You feel the life of the garden-rising and falling, blossoming and withering.” Much like her garden, Sense Four feels organic, fluid, and ephemeral.

Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council by Dana Staub, October 2024.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lauter, Mimi. “In the Artist’s Words: Mimi Lauter.” Frye Art Museum,
http://www.fryemuseum.org/blog/in-the-artists-words-mimi-lauter. Accessed 5 Oct. 2024.

“Mimi Lauter, Bermondsey (2023).” White Cube,
http://www.whitecube.com/gallery-exhibitions/mimi-lauter-ruach. Accessed 5 Oct. 2024.

“Mimi Lauter.” Mendes Wood DM,
http://mendeswooddm.com/artists/30-mimi-lauter/. Accessed 5 Oct. 2024.

Ollman, Leah. “Flower? Animal? Person? The Color-Drenched Questions in Mimi Lauter’s Drawings.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 20 Nov. 2017, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-mimi-lauter-review-20170217-htmlstory.html.

Rus, Mayer. “Tour Artist Mimi Lauter’s Magical Los Angeles Garden.” Architectural Digest, 6 Sept. 2024, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-mimi-lauter-review-20170217-htmlstory.htmlwww.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/tour-mimi-lauters-magical-los-angeles-garden.

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara. Personal photograph by author. 25 Sept. 2024.



The artist works predominantly in soft pastel and oil pastel, deeply layered, incised, etched, and otherwise manipulated into phantasmagoric visions