

Laurie Poast
Born: 1974
Hometown: Bergen
Based in: Bergen
Sculptural vessels, furniture, and objets d’art made in Norway by sculptor Laurie Poast (b. 1974).
Severe and bare, the minimalist forms built by sculptor Laurie Poast are startlingly sensate. Spheres, curves, angles, and proportions intuit the early laws of aesthetics to recast our modern theory of beauty into the simplicity, order, and harmony born out of classical antiquity’s artistic principles.
With earthen minerals and composites of resin, gypsum, cement, and stone, Poast builds sculptural vessels, furniture, and objets d’art in her atelier in Norway. Her artworks serve the interior design trade, private art and design collectors, and retailers internationally.
Working with materials is natural to Poast, having grown up with curls and curious shapes of wood underfoot in an acclaimed violin luthier’s workshop. The workshop is where she played, and her play grew quite inevitably into her work. She studied art and business in Wisconsin, USA, and was informed by interests in neuroscience, metaphysics, music, dance, and literature. In 2009 Poast emigrated to Europe, which offered her profound views of both modern design and centuries-old craft work.
Her self-staged photographs and films tell the story of her artistic influence amidst the stormy Nordic land- and seascapes. Gestural and cinematic, her images depict her as someone who owns her own narrative with a dignity, a sensuality, an audacity, and an intellectual playfulness that writes the pictures.
Laurie Poast In The Studio
Each piece spends a great deal of time in the sculptor’s hands to perfect its unique aesthetic value. Most artworks are constructed manually with handwritten formulas and ratios scratched on the workbench and pieces of styrofoam or wood cut with knives and saws. Poast prefers this, because the connection between the hand and the eye are integral to work with such intuitive aesthetic expression.
More About Laurie Poast
What inspires you?
I find it extraordinary to lay down on ancient geological history: Bare mountainous archipelagos at the coast of Norway that are made of five-hundred-million-year-old mineral sediment, layered and pressed, shifted and turned, and cut by aeons of glaciers, wind, and sea.
Who are some artists that have influenced your work?
Isamu Noguchi, Richard Serra, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh
Where do you go for inspiration?
In the Norwegian culture, connectedness to the land and to the sea is integral to life. This sense of place has become a natural influence in my work.
Credentials
Education
Edgewood College
United States of America, 2004
University of Wisconsin-Madison
United States of America, 2002
Awards
Best Product, Interior og Designmessen
2015
Exhibitions
Maison et Objet Paris Craft
France, 2022
Atelier Åpent
Norway, 2022
Winter Open House
Norway, 2020
Kiosken Vinter Kunstmarked
Norway, 2020
Norwegian Makers Leirvik Pop-up
Norway, 2020
Sundt Julemarked
Norway, 2020
Poast Atelier Open House
Norway, 2019
Dejm Doga Design og Arkitektur Norge
Norway, 2019
Kunst og Design Julemarked
Norway, 2019
Tendens Interiør og Designmessen
Norway, 2019
Poast Atelier Open House
Norway, 2018
Lystgården Christmas Exhibition
Norway, 2018
Tendens Interiør og Designmessen
Norway, 2018
Bergen Design Festival
Norway, 2017
Schøtstuene Kunsthåndverk Julemarked
Norway, 2015
Poast Midwinter Open
Norway, 2015
Vedholmen Galleri Juleutstilling
Norway, 2015
Grieghallen Interiør og Boligmessen
Norway, 2015
Kunstlogen
Norway, 2015
Julemarked i Bergen Bryggen
Norway, 2014
Designernes Eget Julemarked Oslo
Norway, 2014
Galleri Vox 30 x 30
Norway, 2014
B-Open Åpne Kunstneratelier
Norway, 2014
Oseana Kunst og Kultursenter Marknad
Norway, 2014
Julemarked i Bergen
Norway, 2012
Leiden Etsy Netherlands Open
Netherlands, 2011