Emily Hamilton Laux

BIOGRAPHY

Emily Hamilton Laux is an artist who uses photography, mixed media and handmade books to address ideas about the human psyche in relation to domestic and natural environments.

Born in Saigon, and raised in Cambodia, Paris and Washington, Laux has an MA from the American University School of International Service and a BA from Tulane University. Previously, Laux worked as a writer and editor in financial publishing in New York, London and Hong Kong. In Connecticut, she worked as a photojournalist, gallery manager and arts publicist.

Since 2017, Laux’s work has been exhibited at the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography, Beechwood Arts Salon, PhotoPlace Gallery, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Southeast Center for Photography, Terrain of Westport, the Artists Collective of Westport, Davis Orton Gallery, the Westport Arts Center, Ridgefield Artists Guild, and Firing Circuits Studios.

Laux maintains a studio at Firing Circuits Studios in Norwalk, and is member of the Westport Artists Collective and the Ridgefield Guild of Artists. She lives in Westport, CT.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I grew up in a family of two distinct worlds; my mother surrounded me with painting, art history and the decorative arts. My father, a New England sportsman, bequeathed a love of the outdoors-- the wilder, the better.

My art-making is driven by a life-long reverence for nature and my conviction that events in the natural world can be a metaphor for what is happening—or about to happen—in human society. I am equally fascinated by the domestic environments we humans create to nurture ourselves, our families, and our dreams.

Using photography, installation and other processes, I examine individual and collective relationships to both natural and domestic environments. My images are a push-pull of documentation and staged presentation. Part-anthropologist, scientist and set-designer, I am most excited about new ideas and connections concerning how people experience their environments, and what that means for their own psyches, and their relationships with their families, friends and larger communities.