Photography by Barbara Asboth
ARTIST STATEMENT Created from my own staged photographs of models, my work is a response to memories, relationships, and my complex journey into adulthood. Through close cropping of images, my paintings reveal only fragments - partial glimpses that mirror the fragmented nature of self-discovery, where the mind offers up only fleeting moments and cryptic clues we must struggle to piece together.
Influenced by vintage fairytale books, the embroidered borders serve as a visual expression of my desperate longing to escape into an imagined magical narrative - to mask darker emotions and reality with childish denial. The floral patterns are an homage to my childhood in Prague, evoking the joy of that time through references to traditional Slavic art and the work of Czech painter Alphonse Mucha, whilst any religious motifs are a cathartic expression of my confused feelings about being raised in a Christian home.
With hints to another era, my figures live in a world that is both nostalgic and contemporary - my paintings are a reflection of the past and part of a therapeutic process to understand my present.
ARTIST BIO Laura Hope is a figurative artist based in Oxfordshire, UK. She obtained a first-class degree in Illustration at Cardiff School of Art and Design before working as a memorial artist, hand-etching portraits onto gravestones. Laura’s work has been exhibited across the UK and is included in private collections. In recent years, her work has been shortlisted for the Jackson’s Painting Prize, won the de Laszlo Foundation Award at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition, and been awarded the NG Art Creative Residency Prize at Wells Art Contemporary. In 2023, she was commissioned by the Folio Society to create a series of artwork for a new edition of Agatha Christie’s ‘Ordeal By Innocence’.
EXHIBITIONS / AWARDS
2025
L’Espace Entre Deux (A Space In Between) - Église St Laurent, Provence
2024
Shortlisted - Derwent Art Prize
Longlisted - Aesthetica Art Prize
Award of Excellence 2024 - Communication Arts (Illustration Annual)
Selected for 50x50 by the Auction Collective
A Room Of One’s Own - Irving Gallery, Oxford
Ordeal by Innocence - Lynrace Popina, Oxford
Artweeks - Rona Painting, Oxford
Artist and Collectors Day - Woodend Gallery, Scarborough
Behind The Scenes - OVADA, Oxford
Unearthed - Joseph Wales Gallery, Margate
2023
Winner - NG Art Creative Residency (Wells Contemporary)
Shortlisted - Jackson’s Painting Prize
Longlisted - Women in Art Prize
Honourable Mention - Arthouse Z ‘Emerging Artist Prize’
Art On A Postcard - Winter Auction (selected by Verity Babbs)
Rising Artists, Jackson’s Painting Prize - Bankside Gallery, London
Royal Society Portrait Painters Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London
Wells Art Contemporary - Wells Cathedral, Wells
Summer Exhibition - Green & Stone Gallery, London
Commissioned by the Folio Society - Agatha Christie’s Ordeal By Innocence
2022
Winner - de Laszlo Foundation Award for Excellence
Longlisted - Jackson’s Painting Prize
Royal Society Portrait Painters Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London
Summer Exhibition - Green & Stone Gallery, London
Tendencies in Painting - London Paint Club (online)
Annual Open - Southwark Park Galleries, London
Small Works Winter Show - Spring Cheltenham