Laura Jhirad

I create traditional mixed media paintings, mostly portraits of people, layered with imagery and digital elements that pull out the mood and feeling of whoever I'm painting. The physical and digital world interject into one another, coming together into a single world of color, abstraction, and emotion. Each painting is its own universe built around a person, a moment, a feeling I wanted to hold onto.

A big part of my process is letting go of planning and trusting the moment. Something I took away from studying in Paris was to release the stagnant bounds of a rigid composition and focus on the now, the whimsy of the present and how a person makes me feel in that specific moment. Before Paris I would plan everything out. Now I let the painting tell me where it wants to go. That shift changed everything for me.

I'm not trying to create a perfect likeness. I'm trying to express an experience — the colors, the energy, the feeling someone gives off — and translate that honestly onto the canvas. If you look at my work and feel something, that's the point. It doesn't have to be what I felt. It just has to be real.

That same philosophy carries into my wearable art. I design clothing that draws from the natural world, pulling in botanical shapes, organic textures, and the colors and energy of the environment around me. Nature has always been something I come back to across all my work, whether it shows up as flowers layered into a portrait or printed across a garment. For me fashion is just another canvas — art you can wear, take out into the world, and actually live in.

Based in New York, I'm always moving between mediums and seeing where things go. Painting, illustration, wearable art, fashion design. The city is constantly feeding it — all the people and energy and noise and beauty of it. I'm not trying to fit into one box. I'm just a creative person who loves making things and is always figuring out new ways to do it.