Laura Bernstein
Photo by Brad Ogbonna
Laura Bernstein creates viscerally grotesque wearable sculptures for herself and others that become monstrous creatures in both natural woodlands and urban settings.
Made from papier-mâché, wax, felt, and raw wood, the costumes combine the aesthetics of high school play sets, exquisite large-scale puppetry, and low-budget horror and science fiction films. Inspired by nature documentaries and Medieval Bestiaries, a compilation of real and imagined beasts, her videos remove any humanizing voice-over or voyeurism to instead channel and document the defining actions that characterize each beast. Thought of as shells, husks, or hides, the artifices Bernstein adds to bodies ask the ways in which inside and out, normal and freakish, human and animal, are defined and redefined.
Brooklyn, NY
Born 1987, New York, NY
2014 MFA University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2010 BFA Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI