Laura Chasman: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Laura Chasman captures an art world that is increasingly transitory and mobile. Her series of fleeting moments observed at art fairs over the years are painted on FedEx shipping boxes. With quickly rendered brushstrokes, Chasman shows us the art dealers at work, the visitors with glazed expressions, the waiting, the watching, and, of course, the art. Each scene is a snapshot in time, preserving a moment that is quickly lost in the business of selling art.

Chasman first visited an art fair in 2013: the New York Armory Show. “I was immediately overwhelmed by the number of booths displaying art,” she recalls. As Chasman wandered in and out of the cubicle-sized galleries, she was entranced by all the myriad scenes. She says, “These spaces appeared as small stage sets where all the action was taking place between buyers and sellers, while other visitors took in the seemingly countless exhibitions.” As Chasman continued to visit art fairs, she photographed what she saw, capturing the gestures, dress, and tribes of visitors and dealers.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Laura Chasman grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and Smith College School of Social Work. Artists need to support themselves and Chasman always had an interest in psychology. She worked as a psychotherapist and geriatric social worker, and at times, her clinical experience inspired her work as a painter of people. 

Chasman has exhibited her work in galleries and institutions for over 40 years. She was awarded the Maud Morgan Prize, which included a solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; was a finalist for an Artadia Award; and received a Fellowship in Painting and two finalist awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her portraits were included in two Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition exhibitions at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Chasman received three grants from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and was awarded two Vermont Studio Center residency fellowships. She was a visiting artist at the Addison Gallery of American Art in conjunction with their exhibition “Alice Neel.” Her work is in private and public collections, including at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; New Britain Museum of American Art; Fidelity Investments; Simmons College; the Boston Public Library; Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Smith College Museum of Art.

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