Lauren dela Roche
Lauren dela Roche is a self-described queer punk feminist artist whose autodidactic approach integrates a broad range of references, including zines, European modernisms, and autobiography. While largely self-taught, her consumption of visual culture and art history allows her to draw upon long traditions of art history, remixing Egon Schiele’s line drawing with the influence of transgressive cinema, Persian miniatures, Greek mythology, and folklore into her own iconic, fresh style. Growing up in the Bay Area of California, and living for a period of time in both Seattle and Asheville, NC, dela Roche has resided in the Midwest since young adulthood and currently lives and works near St. Louis, MO.
Dela Roche’s recent work, painted on found, mended, and repurposed cotton feed sacks show multiplying and echoing views of a nude woman, who becomes a recurring central character. This form - elongated, with rouged cheeks, stockings, and long raven hair - appears in dream-like compositions. More than representing any specific person, the female form is a symbol for dela Roche, signifying, for example, Mother Nature.
Dela Roche’s work has deep ties to the land and agriculture. Both of her parents come from families who originally immigrated in search of farming opportunities in the United States, growing potatoes in the Midwest. For nearly a decade, dela Roche lived off the grid on undeveloped land in Northern Minnesota, building a cabin solely out of found materials and becoming fully self reliant through farming.
Collecting and mending cotton feedsack textiles by hand before applying paint, dela Roche reflects on her time working—and making art—during harvest time. Each surface is imbued with her enduring curiosity about their unique agricultural histories. These then become the backdrop for paintings which evoke Matissean patterns and forms, layered with archways, butterflies, snakes, and the female form. The woman is at once vulnerable, sexual, and safe, harkening back to the transgressive cinema and performance work of Karen Finley, which were formative influences on dela Roche as a teenager.
In 2012-13, dela Roche was awarded the Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship at the Jerome Foundation, Minneapolis. Between 2013 and 2021, dela Roche exhibited with Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. Dela Roche was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2018. In 2021, she was selected for the Bed-Stuy Art Residency in Brooklyn, NY. Her work is found in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the North Dakota Museum of Art.
Lauren dela Roche
"Estuary" 13
44” x 35”
Silkscreen monoprint on Coventry Rag 320 GSM
2025
Printed by Kingsland Editions.
Lauren dela Roche is pleased to release her long-awaited print. Estuary features her iconic motifs in a multiple format, produced with a level of care and craft that is integral to her larger practice. Each unique work of the edition is a monoprint created using two hand-inked matrices. To print each impression of the edition, the artist hand painted the first screen with multiple colors of acrylic ink, creating a single multicolored layer. A second layer of fine black outlines, rendered in the artist’s signature illustrative style, was then printed to describe the shapes within the scene. Given how her hand worked the materials, the bespoke printing process leaves traces of brushwork within each impression.
Dela Roche printed the edition at Kingsland Printing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a print shop that she has previously worked with for 69 Tearz, her sustainable clothing line collaboration with Curtis Campanelli. Over the course of four days in June 2025, dela Roche created each element of the print and produced the edition with the utmost care and intimacy. The edition is printed on tea-stained Coventry Rag.
Lauren dela Roche
"Estuary" 16
44” x 35”
Silkscreen monoprint on Coventry Rag 320 GSM
2025
Printed by Kingsland Editions.
Lauren dela Roche is pleased to release her long-awaited print. Estuary features her iconic motifs in a multiple format, produced with a level of care and craft that is integral to her larger practice. Each unique work of the edition is a monoprint created using two hand-inked matrices. To print each impression of the edition, the artist hand painted the first screen with multiple colors of acrylic ink, creating a single multicolored layer. A second layer of fine black outlines, rendered in the artist’s signature illustrative style, was then printed to describe the shapes within the scene. Given how her hand worked the materials, the bespoke printing process leaves traces of brushwork within each impression.
Dela Roche printed the edition at Kingsland Printing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a print shop that she has previously worked with for 69 Tearz, her sustainable clothing line collaboration with Curtis Campanelli. Over the course of four days in June 2025, dela Roche created each element of the print and produced the edition with the utmost care and intimacy. The edition is printed on tea-stained Coventry Rag.