Laura Erviti
Laura Erviti is an artist based in the UK, whose work is mainly based on painting and street art.
We'd love to hear about your career and how it started.
As a child, I was very active and drawing relaxed me deeply. That's how I began to interact with art from an innocent point of view. Organically, it became my way of expression and, over the years, my professional path.
When I was in my 20s, I started working as a make-up artist and body painter in a collective called "Delirium". It was a performance-related group made up exclusively of women, including acrobats, dancers, singers, musicians and even a soprano. Delirium operated for 5 years in Barcelona, touring a large number of squats with the mission of raising funds for women's social causes.
The energy arising from creating and supporting each other was also transferred outwards, helping other women who had suffered abuse, sex workers, women at risk of social exclusion... It was at this point that I started to become passionately involved in activism.
After those years of agitation, once I had finished my degree in Fine Arts, I went into a more introspective period when I began to work with painting. Oil painting was the most convenient technique for me and, in a self-taught way, I studied how it worked. That's how my professional career as a visual artist began.
A few months ago, I graduated with a master's degree from Central Saint Martin's University in London, which has allowed me to keep exploring other aspects of social activism. At the moment, taking care of the environment is a very serious issue, so it was very important for me to work from a positive perspective. I have carried out research into waste management, micro-plastics, pollution and fast fashion and how I can make a difference in my creative production.
In addition to environmental activism, I am still connected to feminism, being part of a women's group in the British city of Bristol, called Bristol Sisterhood. I see the two subjects as very closely connected, as they both lead us to care for the environment, both natural and human.
Although you have taken time for personal study and research, you continue to be active in different female communities.
I believe we must democratise art and take direct action in the streets. That's why I've done several murals and I've been involved in a female creative collective in Bristol, where I've been living for the last few years, called the Bristol Woman Mural Collective. The main idea is to reclaim public spaces that are normally dominated by men, as there is very little representation of females in street art. The lack of references often prevents us from daring to paint murals. Thanks to this collective, I have felt completely supported by my colleagues; we all go out together to paint and we have created a very powerful network. While we work, we have both professional and personal conversations, we talk about the work we are doing, our projects, and current social issues. There is a real impact in the community, in terms of building safe spaces that promote a change in the present to live a better future.
Women need to be in street art because it represents one of the most direct forms of art for the whole population. It lives with the citizens and encourages reflection, even for those who are not interested in going to a gallery.
Your style is based on portraiture accompanied by surreal and dreamlike landscapes. What is your composition process?
I try to play with different layers in which I place several images that interact with each other and build up a story.
Dreams are the main discourse in my work, I owe my inspiration to them. Over the years, I have learned to remember them and, nowadays, I have a drawer full of notebooks with written dreams that I have been collecting.
I also create characters that relate to nature in an almost mythological way.
Going back to your practice concerning the environment, we have seen that you are currently researching the use of more sustainable materials.
I try to make my practice as ethical as possible. Just as I am interested in activism in my day-to-day life, being responsible with what I do and the materials I use are fundamental keys to my professional career. I recently discovered a paint that absorbs CO2. It came out just over a year ago in the UK and is called Graphenstone.
Portraits by Mercedes Polo Portillo ©
