Artist Statement

Laila Filmore is a Detroit artist. She has been drawing, painting and telling stories

since her childhood when art became a coping mechanism and a way of grounding

and contextualizing her experiences. Her oil paintings pursue honesty in a collaboration with her environment through a constant and imaginative exploration of the psyche. She uses her personal identity and appearance to act as a tool to provide a message , she hopes to elicit from the viewer a moment of self-reflection and awareness – as personal as her work may appear, the response is universal. As a black woman, Laila wants to assert herself as a creator and narrator of her own identity and experience.

“ Painting has always felt like me trying to make my own hieroglyphics. I try to communicate through symbols and references, contorting my own flesh and pain into something that now holds it’s own space and is comprehensive to the audience. I like to imagine it as me breaking off into smaller cells that embody aspects of the internal and external traits of humanity. It acts as a metaphor for our collective individuality.” - Laila***