Laura

Davis

Laura Davis is a painter, illustrator, and author living and working in North Carolina. Her work spans acrylic, graphite, and mixed media, often blending surreal humor, symbolic detail, and emotionally charged characters. With roots in folk art and a background in therapeutic storytelling, Davis’s work challenges the border between whimsy and discomfort. Her paintings have been featured in juried exhibitions and are part of private collections across the Southeast. When she’s not painting, she writes and illustrates books under L. E. Davis Publishing, often using art to explore neurodiverse perspectives, childhood memory, and social satire. Davis brings both playfulness and precision to her work, inviting viewers to look again—and feel differently.

I create vivid, character-driven scenes that live between imagination and discomfort. My paintings often begin with a moment—real or absurd—that I can’t stop thinking about. I use bold color, distorted figures, and surreal symbolism to explore themes like identity, belonging, performance, and the quiet chaos of human interaction. Some of my subjects are invented, others observed, but all of them are reimagined through a playful, occasionally unsettling lens. I'm drawn to theatrical compositions and emotional ambiguity—what a gesture might mean, or what a viewer might project. While the style may shift, the goal is constant: to make something strange feel familiar, or something familiar feel just a little bit off.

Acrylic, Acrylic(Duplicate__1), Oil / Alkyd, Pastels/Oil Pastels, Photography

Laura Davis

'@Laura_Davis_Official