Laura Arminda Kingsley


Laura Arminda Kingsley is an American-born interdisciplinary artist, working in Switzerland. Her work draws from evolutionary narratives, diasporic mythologies, deep time, and microbiology to engage with plural concepts of human identity. Drawing from multiple cultural backgrounds, Kingsley's practice encourages a shift in perspective towards greater awareness of both human and non-human life.

Early life and education

Kingsley was born in 1984 in Ohio, United States, and grew up in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. She received an Associate Degree in Fine Arts from Altos de Chavón in La Romana, a Bachelor of Science from Hunter College, City University of New York, and a Master of Fine Arts from the California College of the Arts. Her graduate studies were supported by the Dorothy and George Saxe Fund Scholarship and the CCA Graduate Merit Scholarship.

Artistic practice

Kingsley works across various media including ceramics, printmaking, installation, performance, animation, and text.Her works often incorporate cartographic lines and explore themes related to materiality, memory, geographical histories, and the interconnected legacies of colonialism, religion, and cultural practices. By using the human body as a motif in her artworks, performances, and installations, she investigates the different ways in which the human form can exist within contemporary reality.
In an interview with Spotify, Kingsley stated, "I feel like my handwriting is always in my work. There's this multiplicity of ideas and identities in one body through lines and monochromatic tendency in my work." Laura acknowledges thee diverse histories and structures that of belonging continue to challenge humanity across time and space. Her works in turn present this fluid like perception of the body, alluding it to coexist freely across diverse borders.
Her installation on the escalators of The Leadenhall Building, Murmurs of the Deep invites viewers to immerse themselves in its freer, wilder world.Other key projects include Tableau Zurich with her multi-panel painting titled Remember; You Are But Tiny Bits of Existence, and the Twingi Land Art installation in the Swiss Alps. These projects underscore her engagement with large-scale, site-specific art that interacts with public and natural environments.

Selected exhibitions

Between "Facelessness" and "Facefullness", The Recovery Plan, Florence Recuerda: Eres solo diminutos fragmentos de existencia, Cultural Center of Spain, Santo Domingo Mother Water: Maladamatjaute Was a Woman, PICMOL, Brussels Transient Formations, Coin Coin, Zürich Becoming: Thoughts, Dreams and Landscape, Kamene Cultural Center, Nairobi Murmurs of the Deep, Obere Mühle, Dübendorf

Selected performances

Desblanqueamiento, Passengers in Transit, Venice Biennale See Me Through You, Forum Schlossplatz, Aarau Where We Come From, ECK, Aarau Wo Wir Herkommen, Künstlerhaus S11, Solothurn The Procession of Future Artifacts, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Collections

Kingsley's work is held in several public and corporate collections, including:

Awards and recognition

  • Art Studio Award of the City of Dübendorf
  • LOCUS Mikro-Grant
  • CCA Graduate Merit Scholarship
  • Dorothy & George Saxe Fund Scholarship