Laria Saunders

Los Angeles, CA

& San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Laria Saunders (she/her/hers) is a former dancer/photographer whose primary body of work is digital photo assemblage paintings, both still and animated. Her portfolio is primarily abstract and also includes traditional and experimental photography. She is represented by Octavia Art Gallery - New Orleans and ArtLifting, who represent over 85 works. Purchasers include, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Warner Media and Sony Pictures Entertainment and include commissions. After 14 years of illness, Laria began painting on her smart phone while mostly confined to a dark room. The small emitting light screen and small movements with her fingers, has enabled her to create 400 paintings to date. Starting in 2021, due to improved pain management, she has been able to switch to collaging on the tablet with uncompressed texture photos that allow for greater resolution.

This self-taught artist is often seen in the streets snapping images of aging walls, organic sidewalks, dirty puddles and cracks in the road. She does these walk-bouts to collect her palette library and each piece contains 50-100 pieces of texture photos, that can take several hours to several months to create. Laria was raised equally between Los Angeles, Boston and New York. She has lived in many places including, India, Czech Republic, Italy and is currently in Mexico. Her artistic family spans four generations on both sides and includes professional artists in painting, music, theater, dance and photography.

Laria has a Bachelor of Arts from University California Los Angeles (UCLA) in World Arts & Culture. Due to her varied experience in the arts, she was admitted as an alumni arts scholar and had plans to open up an arts center, before the chronic illness and spinal cord injury attack in 1998/99. Saunders is also a self-taught photographer and has been recognized by Light & Composition Magazine as the “top 100 photographers of 2014” and has been awarded by Eden Arts-UK, Momentum Images of Dance-CT, ArtSlant and Project 30k.

Laria is especially interested in ideas expounded by American philosopher, Ken Wilber, in his Integral Theory of everything. She says, “I am fascinated by humans as a species and their inherently artistic endeavors with a seemingly constant forward propulsion towards discovery and innovation. ” The central column, seen in a lot of her paintings is becoming her signature style. “For me, this column is about exploring humanity’s drive to evolve and the sheer power of this often messy process to create the ever-new, next thing. It is also personal and mirrors my own willpower to endure chronic illness.”

Laria has been battling debilitating pain for over two decades; Transverse Myelitis (TM-demyelination spinal cord injury), 17-22 migraines a month, Fibromyalgia and many other painful syndromes. Despite TM, she is fortunate to have mobility, however the pain caused her to live mostly in the dark until 2021. She has sought treatments all over the world, been hospitalized a total of 8 months and has had numerous surgeries. Due to many severe drug allergies, she has only recently has been able to manage the pain. Laria attributes her early obsession with meditation enabling her to survive the Kafka-esque medical maze. “Hurting from head to toe and losing everything, allowed me to completely and utterly STOP and this turned out to be a great catalyst both spiritually and artistically.“

Laria’s first emergence from the isolation “cave” (in India) began in 2006 and in 2010, when she was able to do experimental photography. She worked exclusively for five years on a grand scale abstract collection in Switzerland, France and California, called Despite the Pain. Laria created what she calls “earth swabs" by moving with her camera to form a multi-tiered collection, with the evolution of the imagery growing in complexity every year and paralleling the Universe, Monarch butterfly and her own epic journey.

For the last 13 years, Laria has been exclusively creating photo collage paintings and lives with her husband and golden retriever in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She aspires to create installation work, drawing from the textures of the surrounding community/business and exhibits that incorporate multiple artistic disciplines.