Simone DiLaura is a figurative painter, born and raised in the Detroit, MI area.
Her work focuses primarily on portraits and figural narratives of family and friends whom she has close relationships with. DiLaura's paintings are often done with immediacy and have always been based on the personal relationship she has or develops with the people who pose for the images. This adds a layer of intimacy as well as immediacy to capturing the figures. Her current body of work, Swimmers, began with a photography series she started over a decade ago, photographing friends and family members in her parent’s pool - a series she continues to this day. In these works she is drawn to the ways in which water blurs and distorts the body and amplifies the colors and light underwater. Most of her subjects are caught in a moment of motion completely underwater, a moment of being submerged, holding their breath. The distortions the water creates allows for an exploration of the physicality of paint as a medium, the boundaries of representation of a specific person, and the abstraction of the forms.
Ms. DiLaura received her BFA from the Columbus College of Art & Design and her Master’s degree from Yale School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationally, she currently lives and works in New York, NY.
Select Exhibitions
2022
Break of Day/Edge of Night, The Painting Center, NYC, NY
Heatwave, dodomu Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Magnitude Seven, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
Art from the Boros IX, Denise Bibro Fine Art, NYC, NY
Contemporary Color, Site: Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
8x8 Season 4, Flatfile Gallery, NY
2020
On the Surface, Attleboro Art Museum, Attleboro, MA
Small Works, Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT
2019
Green, Site: Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Random Observations, Perylene Fine Arts Projects pop-up, Brooklyn, NY
2002
Beauty: Nothing more than the promise of happiness, Sylvia Heisel, NYC, NY
2001
Grrls, Untitled Space, New Haven, CT
2000
Other Worlds, 28 Wooster Gallery, NYC, NY
Sharon Core, Simone DiLaura, Allison Smith, Bellwether, Brooklyn, NY
Public Collections
Kent District Library – Amy Van Andel Library & Community Center, Grand Rapids, MI
Education
1996 MFA in Painting, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT
1994 BFA in Fine Art, Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, OH