LAUREN ZENS

Visual artist

Arts educator

Arts administrator

Biography

I am an abstract contemporary painter located in Milwaukee, WI. My interest in geometric and optical art started in 2008 with a hard-edge assignment during a high school painting class. My Golden acrylic paint, painter’s tape, and a quilting ruler are now my most cherished tools.

Living in two metropolitan cities (Milwaukee and Chicago) and growing up exploring the Northwoods of Wisconsin, I find inspiration in the organic and inorganic patterns in nature and architecture. I’m fascinated by nature’s forms - the spirals, ripples, branchings, meanders, waves, spots, stripes, cracks - that naturally repeat and multiply in mathematical and scientific complexity, and the way that urban architecture tends to mimic these patterns.

I attended Columbia College Chicago, earning my BA in Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management in 2012, then returned to my roots in Milwaukee, where my goals accelerated toward a full-time career in music business. Painting during this time offered me a creative and therapeutic outlet, as well as an opportunity to enter the thriving Milwaukee art scene and begin exhibiting my work.

In 2017, my career goals shifted to work with youth in the visual arts, leading me to Eastern Illinois University to pursue my MA in Community Arts. My graduate research focused on three primary topics: equitable and inclusive community engagement, maximum learning for under-resourced youth, and the opportunity for progressive, student-centered learning to transform the current landscape of education. Since this time, I have worked as an educator and administrator at Milwaukee arts nonprofits to support multidisciplinary, community-based arts opportunities for youth and families.

I transitioned into full-time freelance work in 2022, while still engaging with the community as a youth arts educator. I continue to build and transform my art practice out of my studio at Milwaukee’s Var Gallery & Studios.

Artist Statement

I never expected to find a real purpose in a protractor after high school, but my artistic desire to create colorful geometric patterns has led me, somehow, to accumulate three protractors. And two compasses. And seven rulers. 

I begin many of my paintings with an improvised pencil sketch, using a quilting ruler to make calculated lines and angles: a quarter inch space between two half-inch lines, intersecting with another half-inch line at a 60° angle, repeat. I’ve found that preciseness and repetition can organically create magical illusions. Incorporating contrast with my rainbow of acrylic paint tubes adds to the rhythm and movement.

As my learning and confidence in this style has grown, I’ve recently noticed an itch to switch things up - to play. Maybe, I think to myself, instead of laying down four coats of yellow for opacity, I go with one coat and go with some transparency. Or maybe I incorporate all the dried mixed paints I’ve been saving for years to add texture. Maybe I try new tapes, new paint viscosities, new surfaces, new paint additives. 

I’m finding pleasure in occasionally taking a detour from the conventions I adopted 14 years ago. I’ve found myself sprinkling crumbled leaves and broken glass on my painting surfaces, pouring glue, blowing glitter everywhere, and finding creative uses for non-recyclable materials. I’m getting messy.

I’m not veering from my past conventions. I’m expanding on the parts of my practice that were already playful, like the titles of my pieces - (non)words like Arkitar, Helio, and Yaplin. I still get excited about crisp edges and parallel lines, but I now deviate from the somewhat ritualistic tendencies and open up for more independent thought.

I’m also itching to create art that represents something. My art has always been inspired by patterns in my environment (still is), but it’s never represented anything social, philosophical, or psychological. I’m finding myself zero in on areas of my life that I want to represent visually. 

So, funnily enough, my design style is changing - becoming less focused and more loose - and my subject matter is beginning to change - becoming less loose and more focused. As an artist, my new favorite word is play and I can’t get enough of it. 

I’ll still use my cocktail of measuring tools, but I’m giddy about this new stage that is imminently going beyond that.