Artist explores, experiments during residency

The Department of Art and Design is holding the Spring Arts Series, featuring several professional artists, or Artists in Residence, throughout the semester.  

The Artists in Residence spend their time offering open studios, giving artist talks and more, all while working on their own projects. The work created by the artists during their residency will be displayed the following year. 

The current artist in residence is Associate Professor of Art and Gallery Director at Samford University Lauren Frances Evans. Evans will be in residence until Feb. 27.  

According to Evans, she spends her weekdays immersed in the studio as well as the greater art community, even recentlyattending reception at the Johnson Center for the Arts and joining faculty on a studio visit trip to Fairhope, Alabama.  

“The rhythm has been beautifully focused, though it’s also been punctuated by moments of connection,” Evans said. “This feels like the beginning of a new body of work, but it is very much in conversation with what I’ve made before.  

“I’m currently on sabbatical from Samford, and I’m experiencing this residency as an incubator — a place to experiment and follow conceptual threads that have been forming over the past few years.” 

Evans’ earlier work explored the themes of motherhood, relational entanglement and the tension between vulnerability and resilience; however, she is now incorporating her lived experience with chronic pain, healing practices and spiritual exploration. 

“This residency feels like a turning point,” Evans said. “I don’t have the full roadmap yet, but I’m allowing that uncertainty to be generative.”  

Evans is a late-diagnosed neurodivergent person, and she uses the term “kaleidoscopic perception” to describe her experience with time, memory and attention to detail. 

“For me, perception feels nonlinear — layered rather than sequential,” Evans said. “In my video work, I often stack found imagery, masking and blending layers so that it’s difficult to tell what sits on top of what.  

“I’m interested in bringing that same layered sensibility into sculpture.” 

Although digital collage and animation is part of her ongoing practice and will be a large part of her exhibit next year, this residency is focused on hands-on materials.  

“Sculpture can sometimes feel suspended in time,” Evans said. “Animation introduces breath, circulation and subtle movement.  

“I’m drawn to the idea of giving the work a sense of aliveness.” 

She has brought a variety of sculptural components with her for her residency, including fabric with printed images, stained glass, personal items from her home and even drawings done by her children. The combination of elements reflects the layers of her life experience and memory.  

“These elements function almost like portraits — not literal self-portraits, but visual markers of lived experience,” Evans said. 

Her work is often inspired by metaphors, and she thinks of the body's systems as metaphors for the creative process.  

“The nervous system, the circulatory system and especially fascia — the connective tissue that holds everything together — have become powerful metaphors for me,” Evans said. “I’m drawn to the idea that creativity circulates through us the way breath or blood circulates through the body. 

“I’m also inspired by spiritual metaphors like Indra’s net — the idea that everything is interconnected, each node affecting the whole. That sense of interconnection informs how I think about materials, memory and perception.” 

During this residency, Evans said she is experimenting with trusting the process, not forcing the outcomes. 

“I’m allowing the work to unfold without fully knowing its final form,” Evans said. “That means learning new techniques like soldering, incorporating more literal autobiographical materials and exploring how spiritual and bodily systems intersect in visual language.” 

She wants to model an active and ongoing relationship with being creative, not something solely assignment-driven. 

“I think of artmaking as a process of getting to know yourself — how you think, how you move through time, what materials respond to you,” Evans said. “When we try to force work too rigidly, something essential can be lost.  

“This residency feels like a threshold moment for me. I’m grateful for the time and space to experiment, to risk not knowing and to follow ideas that are still forming.” 

Evans will be giving an artist talk at on Feb. 18 at noon as well as an open studio on Feb. 27 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in Malone Hall 209. Students are always welcome to stop by the studio.  

Those interested in seeing more of her work can visit her site at  www.laurenfrancesevans.com.