Meet Lauryn Dove | Oil Painter and Artistic Naturalist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lauryn Dove and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lauryn, we’d love to hear what makes you happy.
So much! My friends, my family, swimming in the ocean, smelling plumeria flowers, walks in autumn. The simplest parts of life make me happiest. It’s such a privilege to be surrounded by nature and community. I feel so lucky to honor these simple pleasures through my artwork. I also give this gift by painting loved ones and cherished places in commissions, building connections with my clients and imbuing their heartfelt emotion in our pieces together. Oil paints make me really happy because they take forever to dry and allow me to change my mind a million times until it feels right.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I started my art career selling prints of my paintings on Etsy and at markets. I met so many amazing people and creatives, but markets were hard on me physically, emotionally, and financially. I found that I would pay a fee to vend and find myself sitting for hours watching people’s disinterest in my art, often not breaking even at the end of the day. To avoid this, I tried to make more commercial art, but my intuitive approach was lost in the process. I had to reorient my practice toward the feelings I wanted to inspire within myself through creating the art and within those witnessing it. I want my paintings to feel like the difference between saying “That sunset is beautiful” and saying “That sunset makes me feel lucky to be alive.” The colors in my paintings speak to euphoric joy and a sort of youthful approach to portraying the wonders of nature. I feel like it’s important that my art is problem-solving in this way rather than trying to be an object for consumption. I am not someone who paints all the time. I wait for natural inspiration and acting on that spark with urgency and as a timestamp of a moment rather than methodically or even in a disciplined way. When I step away from being overly-disciplined, I feel free.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If a friend was visiting San Diego, they would need lots of sunscreen and an empty stomach. For food, we would need to go to Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant in Clairemont Mesa, Awash Ethiopian Restaurant on El Cajon, and to Bhojan Girha to specifically get the Saag Paneer and enjoy their beautiful patio. Otherwise, outside is the place to be. Black’s Beach, Kate Sessions, Sunset Cliffs, and Powerhouse Park are all must-sees. Wherever the day would take us, it would need to end at Stella Jean’s Ice Cream.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My artwork is informed by an emotional kinship with the natural world, for which I am incredibly grateful. My girlfriend, Abby, made me more receptive to the miracles of the universe and my own intuition. Carol Gracie, author of Florapedia, fed my practical brain the unfathomably amazing botanical facts I needed to begin to appreciate nature’s intricacy and whimsy. My photography professor, Mike Kolster, taught me what it meant to create with skill, but never so strictly that there is no room for pleasant surprises. So many more, but those are some really important people on my journey that deserve recognition.

Website: Faye dove.com

Instagram: @dove_faye12

Image Credits
Abby Gonneville