Overlay 
The ephemeral, in music and dance as well as natural form, inspire these paintings. Stratigraphic color and transparency have also been important elements in Laurie Weller’s work for decades; she continually finds new ways to explore these ideas.

In this selected group of paintings from Weller’s “Overlay” series there is a convergence of the curvilinear imagery from the earlier “Sinfonia” series paintings and her recurring interest in mark making and layering information. A sense of space and passage of time is indicated by the way that overlapping layers expose the history of the layers beneath. She thinks of them as complex visual puzzles, and challenges herself to create an engaging environment, starting with a skeletal structure, a mathematical curve, a puzzle piece or other form, and no preconceived idea of the direction the images will take. As the paintings develop, shapes will emerge and disappear, new forms will be created. By creating boundaries with color and shape, then crossing them, she defines concrete forms that dissolve into atmosphere. Paint is applied with brushes, sponges, hands, and trowels to create tone, then layers of paint are scratched off with sandpaper, sponges or a scribe. The images evolve through this very physical, raw and immediate process into something often quite different from the initial compositions.

 
Sinfonia  
In 2001, while an Associate Artist in Residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, Weller began to draw from music, literally and figuratively.  She sketched musical instruments belonging to family and friends, while listening to original compositions by resident jazz musicians. She painted and drew in both the music and dance studios as the dancers and musicians practiced their own compositions. The “Sinfonia” series began as her tribute to their creations, and continues to influence new work. 

 
Eccentric Boundaries 
Weller’s work in this series, begun in 2001, had specific sources in movement and composition, both specific and visual, sometimes oblique and sometimes abstract. Intrigued with ideas involving boundaries in painting, this work often breaks out of the typical rectangle with personal, eccentric shapes. Painting on carved wood she states: “ I scratch, carve and dig into the surface prior to layering paint. Sometimes I find the image in the grain of the wood, at other times texture plays a less integral part of the work. It is important to me to dance close to the edge of painting, yet always paint.”