Artwork in Mercury 20 surrounds the soul during Oakland First Fridays
by Laura Buchanan of The Daily Cal
August 22, 2025Laura Malone’s figurative paintings of “The Shimmering Self” are a mesmerizing glance into human movement, emotion and the act of modelling itself. Works such as “Penelope, Times Three” (2020) were crafted using live nude models online, where Malone became fascinated by their movements between poses. These models’ humanity, in the way she displays their lack of stagnance, is emphasized through colorful streaks of oil paint, intertwined and nearly growing upon each other as they creep up onto the model’s skin. Her marks are mirrors of natural life — green brush lines become ivy and vines.
Laura Malone paints a connective language of ‘embodiment’
by Mary Corbin of 48 Hills
August 22, 2025
The somatic therapist's art comes through listening to the body and reflecting the complexity of human intimacy.
Artist Laura Malone is seeking the essence of beauty in her work. The beauty that resides within the intimacy of the human experience in all its complexities, both joyfully received and unwelcome.
Malone says that in one way or another, her work is always about embodiment—of mood, of connection to others, of the gestures of body language, even her own as she moves paint across a surface; her painting, Camille with Veil, an example of these elements. It’s no wonder that Malone makes her living as a somatic therapist, her art is a reflection of the layers of human intimacy.
Ritual Gathering
Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light by Laura Malone
The Abstracts’ Dilemma by KC Rosenberg
by Steffi Drewes
Continuing through October 19, 2024 at Mercury 20, Oakland, California
The concurrent solo shows at Oakland’s artist-run Mercury 20 Gallery highlight the dynamic work of Bay Area artists KC Rosenberg and Laura Malone. Each painter has a distinct way of harnessing narrative abstraction through an interplay of light and shadow, crescendos of color, and rich materiality. In Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light, Malone explores feminine subjectivity and relationships in dreamlike waterscapes of women, while Rosenberg builds a compelling visual syntax of lines and dots to process her experience with memory loss and recall in The Abstracts’ Dilemma.
Laura Malone Paints Water Women and Others
Oakland artist captures what things feel like
By Janis Hashe for The East Bay Express
Oct 1, 2024
Laura Malone remembers being proud of her painting of yellow kittens when she was about 6. Coming from a family of distinguished artists, she also recalls a childhood in which the scents of oil paint and thinners were commonplace.
Today, she paints in oils as well—but with variations. Her solo show, “Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light,” at Oakland’s Mercury 20 Gallery through Oct. 19, consists of 18 works in oil, some of them layered with polyester Dura-Lar film and/or combined with acrylic or spray paint. Some of the pieces are painted on copper, which, when viewed from different angles, gleams and creates a feeling of movement.
Art and Cake Interview
by Kristine Schoemaker
What keeps you excited in the studio?
Chasing after what Catherine Bradford called “that one good painting.” Always trying to dig deeper, to reach the most essential. Knowing I will never reach it is strangely exciting, kind of like swimming toward the bottom of a dark sea, not knowing where the bottom is or walking blindfolded through your own house.