Born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1983, Laura Wagner spent her early life in Katmandu, Nepal, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. As a young global traveler, she developed the sensitivity and flexibility that comes from exploring and living in other cultures. In 1989 she returned with her parents to Ann Arbor, Michigan where she lived for twelve years. Despite many international adventures, Laura still considers herself a Midwesterner at heart.

In the fall of 2001, Laura matriculated at Brown University where she took classes in psychology, biology, art history, drawing, photography, and museum studies. By 2003 she finally settled on a major in visual arts with a focus on printmaking. In addition to her classes Laura also taught art in an after-school program, worked as a Women Peer Counselor in a freshman dorm and helped organize the Brown Students for Choice escorting program. She was an intern in the contemporary art department of the RISD Museum, and in 2003 joined the Kappa chapter of St. Anthony Hall, a co-ed literary fraternity. There she met and became part of a network of amazing writers and artists.

In 2004 Laura spent four months studying in Florence, Italy. While there she learned printmaking techniques, embracing processes from woodcut to intaglio. Upon her return to Providence, Laura produced a large unbound book of prints and poems titled Bhirsinu Hundaina. Inspired by early stories of her life in Katmandu, Hundaina is a recounting of the tales of her childhood. Motifs of disease, support, protection and restriction permeate the work, which explores the process of story telling as a way of integrating personal history, fantasy, and truth.

After graduating from Brown University Laura moved to Brooklyn and worked as an intern in several New York arts organizations. She combined a studio internship with Judith Solodkin at Solo Impression and occasional assignments with Bill Hall at Pace Prints with data archive work for the International Print Center New York. Laura moved to Philadelphia in September 2005 to work for the Bridgette Mayer Gallery as Ms. Mayer’s first gallery assistant. Soon after relocating to Philadelphia, she began taking classes in lithography and using the studio at the Fleisher Art Memorial.

Always interested in the unique experiences of women in our ever-changing society, Laura explored the disconnect between traditional stereotypes and contemporary motives in a series of screen-prints entitled Cannibal Debutantes. Inspired by a collection of 1950s cookbooks and working with Roman Hasiuk at Space 1026 studio in Philadelphia, she produced the series over a period of months in 2006 with help of a grant from the St. Anthony Hall Educational Foundation. In addition to the Cannibal Debutantes, Laura created a series of small woodcut print/mixed media pieces entitled Barcode Bondage Babies.

In the fall of 2006, Laura left the Bridgette Mayer Gallery to work for the University of Pennsylvania Law School Development Office. She is currently working on a series of lithographs, which investigate the connective and divisionary aspects of fashion and dressmaking in generations of women. She plans soon to apply to graduate school.