Laurie Van Elsacker

Laurie Van Elsacker (°1989, Belgium) is a visual artist who works with collage, painting and print. After deconstructing found images into their atomic building blocks of shape, colour and texture, she re-contextualizes these fragments into new playful compositions. Inspired by jazz harmonies and nature’s polyrhythms, the elements in her works engage in a dance where they attract and repel, contrast and reverberate.   Laurie has a degree in illustration and has been working as a graphic designer and art teacher. She is currently residing in Copenhagen, Denmark.

After studying visual arts and painting for two years, I decided to focus on applied arts and I obtained a bachelor’s degree in illustration and graphic design. In addition, I’ve recently completed a hands-on fashion tailor course. Over the past several years I’ve applied these studies in several contrasting professional settings. I worked for a few years as a graphic designer for a Belgian newspaper (Mediahuis), a hotel accessories company (Merveyl) and nowadays I’m working as a teacher in two academies for fine art. The energy and ideas of those children and teenagers are very inspiring.
However, my real passion lies in the work I’ve done as an illustrator and designer, for which I specialized in fabric designs for garments and furniture. In this way I have gained plenty of experience in working throughout the complete creative process. For example, I often start from drawings, paintings or collages, which are then digitized. In the next step I would make further adjustments and corrections, and optimize the design for printing (e.g. colouring, print repeats) using Adobe Creative Suite. After having the design printed, I would often tailor these prints into apparel and bedding, or use them for furniture upholstery. I also often take photographs or create mockups for my portfolio and outreach via social media. Throughout my career I have demonstrated exceptional technical craftsmanship, but I also love to follow my intuition and experiment with design styles and media.