Laurel Sparks

From my review of Laurel Sparks’s show “Pleasure Dome” at Howard Yezerski:

Jamaica Plain's Laurel Sparks has become one of our best local abstract painters, as her new collection of bright, fun, juicy, abstracted chandeliers at Howard Yezerski Gallery attests. They're all charming sweetness and decadence. (She calls them "portraits of glamour and decay.") And, boy, she has a way with paint.

Sparks appears to begin her compositions with meandering marker drawings outlining the shapes of chandeliers. On top, she slathers chalky acrylic paint, silver enamel, marble dust, glitter. The paint is by turns gritty or drippy. The compositions feel like coloring books joyously colored outside the lines.

Read the rest here.

Laurel Sparks, “Pleasure Dome,” Howard Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave., Boston, Feb. 6 to March 10, 2009.

Pictured from top to bottom: Laurel Sparks, “Vanitas,” 2008; “Archangel,” 2008; “Christmas in July,” 2008; “Genesis,” 2008; “Candy Castle,” 2008; “Arcadia,” 2008.