Laura Bruce (born September 28, 1959) is an American contemporary artist living in Berlin.
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Life
Bruce studied painting at The State University of New Paltz, New York and sculpture at The Slade School of Fine Art in London. She has been visiting professor at the Exeter School of Art, The Slade School of Fine in London, the Berlin-Weissensee Kunsthochschule, and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden. Bruce has taught at the summer academies in Leipzig, Bremerhaven, Dresden, and at the Summer Workshops at the Neo Rauch Grafikstiftung. She is an art educator at the Otto Hahn School in Berlin.
Laura Bruce is the lead singer in the concept band Dangerpony, who performed live in 2012 for the exhibition opening I Wish This Was A Song at the Norwegian Museum of Contemporary Art in a program including Jan Köchermann & Doppelgenscher, Diamanda Galas, and Killl.
Work
Her work explores drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, video and performance. Large-scale black and white graphite drawings are an important part of her oeuvre. They are characterized by bold strokes, clear contrasts of black and white, and a distinctive representation of nature as power / phenomenon / myth and the human relationship to it.
Her drawing process of detailed mark making against smooth, large surfaces of complex gray tones. Her drawings have echoes of 19th century European Romantic painting and Hudson River School painting in the U.S. Bruce often works with historical references, which she approaches from a contemporary perspective, for instance in her installation Perpetual, a work of 79 drawings based on Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos, which she showed in full for the first time at Haus am Waldsee Museum in Berlin in 2018. Or her drawing / sound installation Goodbye is Half the Words You Know (2009-2013), where Bruce presents 10 portraits of classic country singers and reinterprets their songs with her band, Dangerpony. A part of this work was exhibited in 2016 in the exhibition Passion - Fan Behavior and Art (curated by Christoph Tannert) at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin and the Ludwig Museum, Budapest. It was shown in full in the group exhibition I Wish This Was A Song (curated by Stina Högkvist and Sabrina van der Ley) at the Norwegian Museum of Contemporary Art in 2013.
Public collections
Bruce' works can be found in the collections of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (Artothek and the Video-Forum), the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, the Berlinische Galerie, the Collection of the City of Mainz and the Vattenfall Foundation, Berlin.
Public commissions
Laura Bruce's large-format (10 x 6 m) site-specific commission, "De Septentrione ad Astrum" is a permanent mural realized in 2015 in Aschersleben in the Bestehornpark building and officially handed over to the city of Aschersleben.
Awards
2012: Losito Kunstpreis
2010: Grant of the Senate for Cultural Activities, Berlin
2008: Käthe Dorsch Foundation
2004: Grant of the Senate for Cultural Activities, Berlin
2004: Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn
2003: Käthe Dorsch Foundation, Berlin
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions (selection)
2018: To Kiss or Kill, Galerie Rompone, Cologne
2015: Love and Other Machines, New Art Projects, London, UK
2015: BRUCE SILL, with Heidi Sill, Kunsthaus Erfurt
2011: Whippersnapper!!, Fahnemann Projects, Berlin
2011: Augenweide, Vattenfall Foundation, Berlin
2010: Holy Rollers, with Hannah Dougherty, The Forgotten Bar, Berlin
2008: The Hunt, fruehsorge contemporary drawings
2007: Night Twist, Delikatessenhaus, Leipzig
2006: Landowners, Galerie Pankow, Berlin
2005: Big Sky, Galerie Ulrike Buschlinger, Wiesbaden
2004: The Wide, Büro für Kunst, Dresden