Lauren Portada

DE: What is your favorite time of day to paint and why?

LP: My favorite time of day to paint is usually early in the morning, right after a run. I think a lot about what is going on in the studio while I’m out for a run, and that time/space provides for great reflection and problem solving. I also really enjoy the mid day into the evening, though that time is harder for me to make happen as mom demands are usually high, with after school activities, dinner, bath etc.

DE: Does the light of the early morning have an impact on your work?

LP: Oh, for sure! I’ve been paying close attention to the quality of early morning light in my paintings for some time. It has a certain clarity and stillness—how it briefly transforms everything it touches—that I’ve been trying to capture in my recent work. Because of this, waking up early to observe and document it has become an important part of my process. This interest in light also connects to broader questions I’ve been thinking about, especially through reading Rebecca Solnit’s essays on climate change.

These ideas are informing my next body of work, which will focus on Il Bosco Che Suona, the forest in Italy where wood is traditionally harvested to make string instruments. The long-term impact of light, atmosphere, and climate on materials feels both significant and timely, especially in the context of environmental change. I’m interested in how environmental changes are becoming visible—and audible—through materials that have been consistent for generations.

DE: Do you prefer podcasts, music or neither in the studio? What are you currently listening to?

LP: I listen to everything in the studio, but mostly it’s a lot of science podcasts like ologies or shortwave, 2 black girls 1 rose for reality TV dish, Some Work All Play for trail running and then old seasons of survivor play in the background for noise and filler. Some music plays on occasion: old Cuban music, Alice Coltrane and her prodigy Brandee Younger, Little Simz, Beyoncé, the Knife. I prefer podcasts overall as I tend to tune out the talk and the filler allows me greater focus.

DE: Do you replay podcasts or prefer to hear new ones? I am constantly replaying podcasts because I only half hear them the first time.

LP: HAHA I do the same thing. I also read paragraphs and pages in books over again because I zone out in the process of reading. I know myself to be mostly a visual learner - with experiential learning also being a component of how I learn and auditory learning is ranked bottom. I wonder why I like podcasts so much and I think it’s very much because of the fact that I don’t take much in, but it occupies some space for me to focus on what’s in front of me, does that make sense?

Lauren Portada lives and works in The Oranges, NJ. Previous exhibitions include Deanna Evans Projects (NY); Gold Gallery (Montclair); Transmitter Gallery (NY); Trestle (NY); Kristen Lorello Gallery (NY) and The PIT (LA). She has exhibited nationally and internationally in New York, Chicago, L.A., India and Norway. Portada was one of ten founding members of the artist-run collective Regina Rex located in Brooklyn and Manhattan from 2010-2018. She has held residencies in India (Fulbright); Svalbard, Norway; Vidgelmir Cave, Iceland; and Skowhegan. Portada has an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a BFA from Fordham College. She teaches painting at MSU and Trevor Day School.

Portada’s process mirrors the themes of the work. Rejecting traditional painting norms, she works on both sides of the canvas, engaging in a meticulous process of layering, wiping, staining, and collaging. Paint is built up and then stripped away. Canvas and linen are dyed, tarnished, torn, and adhered to the surface. These interventions disrupt the image, forcing a reckoning with what's visible and what's obscured.

EXHIBITIONS WITH DEP:

Lauren Portada, The Story of My Teeth, 2025
Off-Kilter, w/ Halsey McKay Gallery, 2025

DE: What's the most embarrassing note in your notes app?

LP: Refrigerants shows signs of restriction and it is overfilled

Calm down bin

Things that seem impossible to talk about or to and / or if something is just a minor thing

Mob psycho 100

Pee first in orange village

Soren Seventh Song

Anti phospholipid syndrome

Church of 100 doors

3-2-1 reflection prompt

DE: I love these! I feel like they are such a great entry into how your brain works. I’d love to know the context for “pee first in orange village” and “Church of 100 doors”?

LP: Yes! I agree– in order to find something again I need it to stand out - not your average header!

PFIOV is a note about what to do first once arriving to the start of the NYC marathon last year! NYCM has over 60,000 participants and they need to divide the waiting area up into 4 different color villages– my coach was like, go pee first 🙂

Church of 100 doors note was from last summer. While visiting Greece we learned of the Church of 100 doors. It currently has 99 visible doors. Legend weaves a tale of a hidden, hundredth door that will only reveal itself when the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople becomes an Orthodox church again.

DE: What causes you the most frustration in the studio?

LP: I rarely make drawings that become paintings because I find the process of translating a drawing into a painting to be HIGHLY frustrating. The type of mark that can be made in a drawing is not easily made in painting, if at all. Often there is a moment in that transition period, if I'm referencing a drawing, where I have a talk with myself to let the painting be its own thing. Then I usually do something to fuck it up, and cause a rif with its reference. That helps.

DE: What do you find helpful about making a drawing first? Is it a way to map out your ideas?

LP: Drawing is quick, immediate - ideas come out easily. When I’m traveling and I have deadlines, drawing is the best way for me to address what I’m wanting to work on, out, through. I also secretly love that moment when the rift between drawing and painting occurs - -keeps me on my toes and challenged by painting. If it always came easy I don’t think I’d remain as engaged with it as I have for the last … 25 years?!

DE: What’s the best advice you have ever received and who did you hear it from?

LP: I listened to a lecture while I was at Skowhegan from their archives, by both Vija Celmins and Richard Serra who gave the same advice - to work everyday. That work doesn't always need to be in the studio, but to think about the work and process the work and remain with the work so that the flow stays accessible.

DE: I agree that the work is not always in the studio, I feel the same with the gallery. How else do you “work” outside the studio? Reading? Looking?

LP: Yes to all of this; reading, conversing, engaging with nature, really LOOKING and taking in what is around me, hanging with my kid, making meals, going to galleries and museums.