LAUREL SPARKS is a Brooklyn and Hudson Valley based painter whose work intersects queer craft, textile, occult and abstract histories. Esoteric correspondence systems are encoded in patterns and glyphs that materialize cosmological mysteries. In tandem, elements of decoration and artifice pay homage to queer and feminist counterculture expressions. Awards include a Chiaro Award Residency at Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell Fellowship, Elizabeth Foundation Studio Intensive Program at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, NY, Fire Island Artist Residency, NY, SMFA Alumni Traveling Fellowship, Berkshire Taconic Fellowship, and an Elaine DeKooning Fellowship. Recent solo projects include Time Machines at Kate Werble Gallery NYC and Settler Seance at Tinworks Art, Bozeman MY. Sparks holds an MFA from Bard College and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at Tufts University. Sparks is 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the Siena Art Institute, Italy and is Associate Professor in Painting at Pratt Institute, Brookly, NY.