Lauren Klotzman

Lives and works in Houston, TX, USA

Artist statement

At my works' core is a concern for two mediums: time and energy. Since 2022, my pieces have generated thorough media descriptions which always end with an acknowledgement that these two “materials” are key to the works’ existence. Via the conventions of art vocabulary, I call attention to these baseline, fundamental criteria for art production and viewing with the aim to highlight the complex underpinnings and infrastructures which are present. Overall, the inclusion of “time and energy” is meant to be an expansive gesture which alludes not only to a human scale, but also geological, biotic, and astronomical scales. “Time and energy” thus includes the exertion and duration spent making the work, the caloric consumption of the artist and the respective viewer, and the years that either party is spent alive in a terrestrial existence. It alludes also to what is needed to create the electricity which flows through our urban infrastructure, acknowledging the labor, lives, and material contexts required. The energy of technology and infrastructure is produced by time: the upkeep of 21st century life requires petrochemicals which consist of long dead creatures which have been transformed by geological pressure over millions of years, as well as the billions of years in which our planet and other astrological bodies operate. Overall, my work is made from a position of deep cosmological questioning, an expanded view of consciousness, and unconventional views on what defines “life”...

Artwork