Laura Sharp Wilson

The Center: Advanced Mentorship Progrram Participant (2022 - 2024)

is focused on painting, sculpture,  outdoor installation, public art and  performance art.  Wilson’s paintings are distinguished by rendering with acrylic paint and graphite on mulberry paper adhered to a wood panel.  Textiles and surface pattern design have long been a huge influence on the artist and are an element in her installations, and performances.

Laura Sharp Wilson’s current work explores intersections: between humans and the botanical, and overlaps amongst human identities in contemporary American society.  These ideas are illustrated with floral forms, patterns, cords, ribbons, knots, weaving, bound, cosseted and ensnared shapes, chains and strands of beads.

Laura received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University where she was particularly inspired by teachers  Sam Gilliam and Susanne Slavick.  The artist studied surface pattern design at North Carolina State University and served as an apprentice at the Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia. Wilson received an MFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 2018 the artist was a resident at the Golden Foundation.

In 2016 Laura’s terrazzo floor design  “Thread, Strand, Rope and Yarn” was installed in the Eccles Theater in downtown Salt Lake City.  Her solo exhibition “From the Dining Room Table” is currently on display at McKenzie Fine Art in New York. Wilson’s installation “We Don’t Understand” is included in the Utah Statewide Annual at Ogden Contemporary Arts in Ogden, Utah.  ”Chiasma” , a solo exhibition of new work by the artist was on  display this past  summer at Granary Arts in Ephraim, Utah.

Wilson was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1965 and grew up in northern New Jersey and New York city.  The artist lives and works in Salt Lake City, Utah.