Artist Bio:

Laurel King is an artist based in Chester, CT. She arranges found items into sets or

“assemblages”. These assemblages are meant to be spirit gardens where each item can

represent a character in a story and can be homes for these sprits. She has also done a series

of acrylic paintings based on photographs of these pieces. She has a YouTube channel that

chronicles her process. Sometimes these pieces are accompanied by sound collages that are

made by overlaying many different tape recordings.

Laurel attended Central Connecticut State University in the Art department with a concentration

in Painting. She has shown her paintings and up cycled clothing at Klekolo World Coffee. She

curated an assemblage installation and did five performances at The Buttonwood Tree in

Middletown, CT. She has done multiple assemblage installations at Moulton Collective in

Willimantic, CT.

Laurel illustrated an Anarchist themed tarot deck The Wayward Tarot, completed in 2014.

Recently she has been assembling patchwork cartomancy tarot decks made from randomly

selected mismatched cards that she decorates. These cartomancy decks can be found at The

White Rabbit in West Hartford and House of the Triple Moon in Essex.

Artist Statement:

Laurel King became interested in putting Sets together in 2019 and began organizing

Assemblages by 2020. As a way to affect change during this unprecedented era, her

assemblages represent or at least hold space for situations in her own life or the wider world.

Her Assemblages are comprised of items she collects mostly from thrift shops. She makes

videos introducing these items, adds them to existing pieces or puts them aside for later

projects. When Laurel is working with her Assemblages she often records herself unpacking

and packing items into boxes and moving the objects around. She stages pieces in her work

space and then sometimes installs them in other locations. During live shows she also often

plays recorded layered sound and music as accompaniment. In her current work the

Assemblages are sometimes also photographed and then she does paintings based on these

photos.

Some of Laurel’s influences and inspirations are The Office of Collecting and Design,

LatteASMR (Seul Gi Lee), Jean Marzollo’s iSpy books, Reiki and Christian imagery. Another

theme in her work is Tarot. Laurel has been studying and practicing Tarot since 2009.

You can find Laurel on Instagram @laurel.knight.xxi & @floral.laurel.xxi

YouTube channel @laurelknightxxi

The Album “AB12345” can be found on Bandcamp under Laurel Knight.