Louise Laborie's Watercolor and Charcoal Visions of In-Between America
Louise Laborie, a French comic artist and illustrator from Nantes who resides in Paris, captures the essence of motels, highways, and skate parks during twilight, often portraying aimless teenagers. Notable works include Motel Blues, which features a woman lounging on a motel bed, along with imagery of a pink car, a sunset house, and skateboarders. At 18, Laborie relocated to Paris to pursue art, initially aspiring to be a photographer before transitioning to drawing and printmaking at the École des Arts Décoratifs. Her illustrations debuted at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in 2018, and she released her first comic with Sarbacane in 2022. Her artistic exploration of transitional spaces is influenced by music, with recent ventures into light and color.
Key facts
- Louise Laborie is a French illustrator and comic artist from Nantes, based in Paris.
- She studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris for five years, focusing on drawing, printmaking, screen printing, artist's books, and zine-making.
- Her first illustrations appeared at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in 2018.
- An exchange at Parsons School of Design in New York led her to take a real interest in comics.
- Her final-year comic project was published by French publisher Sarbacane in 2022.
- She held her first solo show, Highway 61, at Slow Galerie, followed by a second Sarbacane comic, Rock'n'roll Suicide.
- Her work often depicts transit spaces and teenagers in in-between worlds.
- She created the series Flou (blur) and works inspired by a trip along the Blues Highway from Chicago to New Orleans.
Entities
Artists
- Louise Laborie
Institutions
- École des Arts Décoratifs
- Parsons School of Design
- Bologna Children's Book Fair
- Sarbacane
- Slow Galerie
- Kingston Mines
Locations
- Nantes
- France
- Paris
- New York
- Clarksdale
- Chicago
- New Orleans