Lauren Dale is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Her work combines western fantasy with domestic surrealism. In 2024 she received her BFA from Metropolitan State University of Denver in painting and sculpture. She is currently based in Castle Rock, Colorado.
Artist Statement:
“The cowboy has been presented as the solitary hero in a monolith of stories. Early American frontier painters showed cowboys embodying aloneness within divine landscapes. When experienced within the mythological American frontier, aloneness is as grand as the landscape itself. In contrast, solitude within the private, real space of a home is unconsecrated. Domestic solitude, like the American West, is storied with cultural myth and stark reality.
The work that I make weaves two worlds, the home and the mythic Wild West, in search of the elusive freedom and sustained aloneness that only cowboys seem to be painted into. By portraying the experience of solitude through the proxy of the American West, this work questions the impact of how, where, and by whom aloneness is experienced.”
