Lauren Mills

BIOGRAPHICAL

Lauren A. Mills has won national acclaim in her recent debut as a sculptor and earlier for her career as a book author and illustrator. Her work has exhibited in galleries and museums across the country including at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Lyman Allen Art Musem, Radcliffe College and the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts. Her book illustrations are included in the collections of Keene State University, University of Connecticut at Storrs, and the Mazza Collection , Finlay, Ohio.

Mills’ books have won top awards, including, The Golden Kite Best Book Award and the Charlotte Award for best picture book. Her stories have been performed by storytellers and actors across the country and on the radio. The Rag Coat was performed as a ballet by the University of Utah.

Her first bronze of Bacchus won three national awards and her sculpture, “Legacy” was commissioned by the Heritage Park, Lake Winona, Indiana, 2008.Recent Awards for Sculpture:

Gold Medal - Allied Artists of America 2006

Finalist - Art Renewal Center International Salon 2007

Finalist - National Sculpture Society 2007, 2009Exceptional Merit Award - American Portrait Society 2008

Award of Merit - American Women Artist Exhibition 2008First Place - Portrait Society of America's Members' Showcase 2009

Finalist - Art Renewal Center International Salon Exhibition 2007, 2008/09

Honorable Mention - Art Renewal Center International Salon Exhibition 2008/09

Merit Award for Sculpture - Salmugundi Club 2009

Non-Members ExhibitionFinalists - American Art Renewal International Salon Exhibition 2010

Lauren Mills was trained in traditional methods passed down by the masters of the European Renaissance.

Her work is greatly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and their detailed focus of the natural world as well as their sense of mythical wonder. The New York Times described her watercolors as “alluring….Whistlerian to the point of PreRaphaelitism.”

Smithsonian described Mills’ watercolors as “bewitching” and The Washington Post wrote about The Rag Coat, “Mills’ story is exquisite and complex, while her pictures are palely watercolor radiant.”After Mills received both her Bachelors and Masters degrees of Art in California, she studied sculpture a few years at the Lyme Academy of Fine Art and egg tempera in Europe and the United States.

Lauren Mills has taught at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts and at Paier College of Art, both in Connecticut, and privately in Massachusetts.While Mills was working as a book artist she also became fascinated in sculpture in ‘91 when she wanted to immortalize her daughter as an infant.

As her daughter grew up Mills became more intrigued with formal painting and sculpture and still focuses on her daughter as a subject as well as friends, family and neighbors.Lauren Mills says, “I am fascinated by the expressions of the human face, the language of the body, and the stories they tell. However, it is the mystery of the untold story each subject keeps hidden away that continually feeds my passion to create.”