Surace Embraces Southern Gothic

The genre known as Southern Gothic is unique to the Southern region of the U.S. and speaks specifically to the influence on Laura Surace’s art.

Surace, an Atlanta native, is part of a growing group of artists moving back what she calls the “old school” way in creating their work by hand, as opposed to software programs.

Surace grew up in Sandy Springs within a close knit extended family. Many of her relatives lived on the same street, only a couple of doors down from her parent’s home.

Her grandfather founded the family business, Universal Tile, in the late 1960s where Surace and her brother Brad would work during their high school summers.

“There is this real sense of pride I have for the South, the red clay, the connectivity of the soil; the soil connects us regardless of who we are,” she explains.

Surace recalls seeing the red clay quarried literally from the backyard of her grandfather’s company and transported into the tile manufacturing buildings. This left an indelible impression on the young Surace, shaping her view of the world and the people in it.

“I enjoy working with the different shades and hues of the soil – its honest, its simple; people hundreds of years ago would be inspired by sitting and taking in the night, those sorts of simple things can give inspiration,” Surace says.

Her interest in art grew as she got older. By her junior year of high school, Surace had determined she wanted to study arts in college. After graduating in a senior class of 29 people, Surace chose to attend Carson Newman College in Jefferson City, TN, where she would earn her BFA, Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Initially deciding to double major in Arts and Biology, Surace envisioned a career as a medial illustrator making the inner anatomical drawings for textbooks, medical science magazines and research papers. But, her study of the arts unlocked a passion for painting and an insatiable appetite for Southern-based literature.

Nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, Carson Newman was the perfect backdrop for folklore literature. Surace’s interests gravitated to the rich stories of Southern Gothic writers like Carsen McCullers, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Alice Walker and Tony Morrison, as of late.

As Surace describes, Southern Gothic deals with the South’s belief in folklore, redeeming itself from its past and its dark side – dating back to slavery. She says there is a redeeming quality in the work of many of the writers she admires. She allows these writers to inform her work and influence her artist creations by carefully crafting stories into each of her paintings.

“In each piece of art I make, I try to capture some kind of storyline in my work,” she says.

Upon graduating from college, Surace moved back to Atlanta where she worked as an apprentice for Vera Struck. Later she worked for BJ Zhang, a talented artist formally trained in Communist China. She credits his mastery of the technical aspects of the craft in cultivating specific applications she uses in her work today.

“American schools don’t really teach formal training, instead they focus more on freedoms with creative expression,” Surace proclaims.

Zhang’s influence on Surace’s work took shape in how she now plans out her work, develops the color schemes and builds the foundation of her creations. He taught her how to use renaissance techniques and incorporate them into modern art.   

Opening Artshow, her first studio/gallery, in Inman Park with her husband Jeff in 1999, Surace realized a way of being profitable while doing what she loved. She and Jeff opened Surace Art Studios in Marietta Square in 2008, seeing a need for expansion to their workspace.

Surace takes time to give back, helping kids by teaching summer camps with the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art and occasional classes with A.R.T.S of West Cobb.

“I teach confidence through art because people have their own stories; if you teach them [children] that confidence at an early age. It’s something they can hold onto for life.”

When thinking on the impact of her lasting legacy, Surace concludes, “I hope people can relate to it [her art] and it encourages people who buy it to find their own stories from their past.”

Laura D. Surace is available for commissioned works in abstract, charcoal or landscape. She can be reached at: lauradsurace@hotmail.com; 404.783.5062; www.suraceartstudios.com.