Iconic, Nostalgic, Personal & Reflective (Greg Lauren)

Beverly Hills,

Today, our group had the privledge of meeting and capturing the vision of Greg Lauren, nephew of Ralph Lauren. Greg Lauren is a visionary and reflective artist who makes his art in a variety of non-traditional mediums with the goal of affecting and moving people.

Greg Lauren expressed to our group how from a young age he was inspired by the remarkable world of creativity and style that surrounded him through his father and uncle.

 

In researching more I learned that Greg's first painting was done while sitting with his grandfather, an artist and trompe l'oeil muralist when he first arrived in the United States.  Lauren's father is a talented artist who uses his skill and creativity as Head of Men's Design for Ralph Lauren.

   
After receiving his training in high school at The Dalton School in New York, Greg went on to earn a B.A. in Art History from Princeton University in 1991. Lauren has had solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago and New York. Lauren’s work is in private collections around the world. 

His installation in a boutique on the stylish Beverly Boulevard in West LA is a combination of museum and retail shop that is celebration of deconstructive art through which Greg explores his relationship to fashion by creating archetypal menswear with delicate, crumpled paper. Lauren cuts and sews thin Japanese paper to simulate wool, cotton, and gabardine, and then manipulates it to give the illusion of frayed edges and wrinkles, each representing the anima and movement of it's iconic and heroic wearer.

He also incorporates traditional painter's materials like canvas, drop cloth and scrawled journal entries into his work studio that is part of the installation. Against one display of suit jackets and ties on maniquins, he has added a video element, projecting an edited version of Cary Grant’s classic To Catch A Thief on top of ten white suits, a tribute to the dandy icon.

Greg's devotion to drawing and passion for working on paper was the basis for his signature medium that includes oil on specially treated Japanese paper. Greg's work explores themes including identity and image development, he plays with familiar, iconic images by taking a look at them from an emotional perspective based upon historic and synergistic imagery based upon ones personal, cultural and social experience, through life and film alike. 

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