Biography: Laure Drogoul

Laure Drogoul, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) alumna, Rinehart School of Sculpture '81, is a Baltimore-based interdisciplinary artist who makes sensorial/experiential works using sculpture, installation, performance, and Web-based media. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, Drogoul moved to Baltimore in 1979 after visiting MICA's Rinehart School of Sculpture, located in the historic Mount Royal Train Station. Finding an affinity with the program, the historic building in which it was housed, and the city overall, she ultimately chose to remain in Baltimore to pursue her art career after graduating from the program.

Drogoul describes her work as "projects with objects, video, sound and action whose forms function together in the way a theater might work." Her recent endeavors, such as the ongoing Web-based project Olfactory Factory, address the senses and their connection to memory and geography as well as ritual and tradition.

Her artistic practice continues to evolve as she incorporates new technology into the creation of her artworks. Her work involves collection, repetition, and observation of the body's connection to place and memory, folding layers of scientific observation and experimentation into them as she builds. These interactive works bring the viewer into active participation, and in some cases, utilize the participation to actually define the work. Following along the lines of Dada and the Fluxus movements as well as the performances and happenings of the 1960s and early 1970s, Drogoul continues the exploration of the concepts of body space as well as continuing to examine the relationship and tension that exists between biology and culture.

She has exhibited and performed throughout the United States and internationally, including Europe, Asia and Russia. Drogoul has received Maryland State and Baltimore City Art Awards, Franklin Furnace Fund Awards for Performance Art and a Mid Atlantic Artist as a Catalyst Award to design an interactive exhibit at the Pittsburgh Childrens Museum. In 2004, she was the recipient of a US/Japan Creative Artist Fellowship - a joint program established in 1979 between the Japan-US Friendship Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2006, Drogoul was the inaugural winner of the prestigious Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize - an award granted to a visual artist working in the region. In addition, Drogoul is founder and artistic director of The 14Karat Cabaret, Maryland Art Place's performance space and cultural laboratory. As The 14Karat Cabaret director, she has presented multi-disciplinary performances, music, film and hybrid acts of all sorts. The Cabaret was founded in 1989 and has since become a Baltimore cultural institution.