Laurie Hicklin

 I thought my brother Steve, the second oldest in my family and eight years my senior, was the best artist in the world. One summer in 1968, he and five of his closest 'friends' took a Saturday afternoon and painted every inch of his bedroom in vivid, aggressive psychedelic colors. Not a door, window frame or corner of that bedroom was spared.  It captivated me. From that moment on I knew I wanted to be an artist and I am.

My work is largely autobiographical. I do not begin a work with an audience in mind; rather I sort out memories and the feelings invoked by those memories and I translate them through my art. I have no specific means for this translation. I find that not restricting my medium and method allows for a degree of freedom which enables the true emotion of the piece to be evident in the final product. I have found, too, that the greatest success is obtained when I submerge myself into the mood of the subject matter. Therefore every work I do is drawn from my "inner depths'' so to speak, which more often than not is a dark and not a particularly pleasant place to delve. But it is a necessary place and I spend a lot of time there in order to unearth, to "birth" ideas and confront them.