STATEMENT

My work responds to the lived, remembered, and imagined histories that emerge from aging buildings, ancient dwellings, and new constructions to reflect on how we live across cultures and communities. I collage and collapse planes to fuse times and places, and build cardboard models as reference for scenes that are believable, yet impossible. In some paintings I combine details from old buildings and new construction to create original environments. In others I more objectively record the effects of time and climate change on a vulnerable neighborhood such as the Lower Ninth Ward in Post-Katrina New Orleans, or ancient cliff dwellings in the American Southwest, recently opened to drilling and other human destruction. My current work includes large-scale canvases that explore the epic nature of these endangered sites, as well as more intimate paintings of their inner walls.

BIO

Laini Nemett holds an MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art and a dual BA from Brown University in Visual Arts and History of Art & Architecture. Recent solo exhibition venues include the Paul Mahder Gallery in Healdsburg, CA, Mandeville Gallery in Schenectady, NY, Guilin Art Museum in China, VisArts in Rockville, MD, and Institute for Contemporary Art at Platform Gallery in Baltimore, MD. Selected group exhibitions include the Albany International Airport Gallery, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, String Room Gallery at Wells College, Adelphi University, Collar Works in Troy, NY, SACI Gallery in Florence, Italy, YoungArts with JP Morgan Chase Collection for Miami Basel, Ethan Cohen, NY, Gold Coast Arts Center, and Geoffrey Young Gallery. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Queens Council on the Arts, and the Fulbright Foundation. She has participated in artist residencies at Yaddo, the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, Hambidge Center, UCross Foundation, Jentel, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Alfred & Trafford Klots International Residency in Léhon, France. Nemett lives and works between Brooklyn and Schenectady, NY, where she is Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting at Union College.