Laura Sexton uses splashy strokes and vivid acrylic paints to celebrate everyday people and places. She sees her art as a vehicle for connecting and empowering others to grow. Laura’s work has appeared in exhibitions at galleries from Indiana to Georgia, as well as local and online shows. A predominantly self-taught artist, Laura’s theater minor and role as instructor at Wine & Design in Gastonia provided her only training. Laura received the Merit Award from the Gaston County Arts Guild Miniature Show in 2020 and Judge’s Choice award at the 2021 Mooresville Arts Council Artober Festival. ACTFL’s The Language Educator also selected one of Laura’s teacher mask grids for their Spring 2021 cover.

Laura collects images of people, places, and objects from her daily life with connections to special moments. These images range from friends’ Facebook selfies, as in the teacher mask series, to scenes from family walks or teacher travels. She seeks to display the intensity of the underlying emotion in the seemingly simple moments by using the contrast of warm and cool colors, light and shadow. The lines and brush strokes of her work aim to focus attention on the essence of the images, the elements that define the feel of the moment.