Lauren Elyse’s paintings and illustrations are undeniably cool. Based in San Diego, California, she took to art at a very young age and began painting surfboards and skateboards as a teenager, independently at first, and later moving on to collaborate with companies within the industry.
Soon, surfboards turned into contracts with local businesses for murals which then translated into private commissions. “Everything really just fell together from there,” she explained in an interview with CreativeFluff Magazine.
“I had an inkling that painting was going to be something I wanted to dedicate all my energy towards around seventeen when I started college,” she recalled. “I made the decision to major in business over art right away because I knew if I wanted it to work, I needed to know how business worked. I don’t know how exactly my teenage self figured this out but I’m sure I had help with this one as my dad is a college professor and has been a great mentor to helping me understand how to achieve what I want in life.”
When it comes to the work itself, she describes it as “fragments that swirled themselves together, influenced by life experiences, other artist’s work I admire, my own observations and emotions, each one serving a purpose for something I need to get out and say.”
Knowing when a piece is finished generally comes down to looking at it and understanding that one more brush stroke and the whole thing could fall apart. “That’s usually my signal more than asking ‘am I satisfied?’” she explains. “I ask, how easily can I ruin all I’ve built up to this point. That’s not to say I don’t often step over that line, but sometimes it means the destruction of a painting, other times it really makes a piece. The end point is something I acknowledge, sometimes ignore, and I’ve been known to pick up older work and continue expanding on them. So I guess nothing really is ever truly finished.”
Take a look at some of her fragmented pieces:
