Laurie Hogin (American, b. 1963)

Laurie Hogin is a contemporary painter known for her overgrown landscapes and classical portraits of mutated plants and animals. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting at Cornell University and continued for her Masters of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Hogin chooses the various species of animals she depicts based on their allegorical and metaphorical associations to contemporary Western culture. These creatures are so degraded and mutated that they straddle the line between manufactured toys and naturalistic specimens. Hogin’s oil paintings combine the visual strategies used in the history of painting, science dioramas, fashion photography and retail display with the metaphorical narratives of human desire, impulse, and need. She shares her diverse influences with her students as a Professor of Painting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hogin’s work is in the collections of the New York Public Library; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Federal Reserve Bank in Detroit; the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art; and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Photo: News Bureau Illinois, Photo by L. Brian Stauffer