Lawrence Valenza

Lawrence Valenza (American, b. 1961.) studied Fine Art at both Pratt Institute in New York and the School of Visual Arts. His work is a marriage of painted portraiture within beautifully constructed wood sculptural mixed media niches. "Quite often when I work, I paint or carve some element with no clear idea what I intend to do with it. In a way it’s like creating my own objets trouvés. An image may lie around for months or even years before I understand what I want to do with it. Digging through my studio I am sometimes pleasantly surprised by an old, unsolved friend. Sometimes the answer never presents itself or informs other works without resulting in a completed work of it’s own."

Courtesy of Robert Fontaine Gallery