About the Artist
Bio
Lauren Knollmeyer is a self-taught oil painter based in Kirkland, WA. Her work explores balance through themes of nature, motherhood, and mental health. A former engineer turned full-time mother and artist, she draws on moments of reflection—often found in motherhood, nature, and memory—to paint representational landscapes and portraits.
Her work has appeared in solo exhibitions at the Bellevue Library and Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, WA, as well as juried group exhibitions throughout Washington State. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at Overlake Medical Center and currently has work on display in a group exhibit at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in New York. Knollmeyer’s work is in private collections throughout the United States.
Statement
My work explores the quiet, complex, and often conflicting realities of motherhood—its beauty and intensity, its joy and isolation, its capacity to both ground and unravel us. As an artist, mother, and former engineer, I’m constantly seeking balance between these roles, and painting has become both a refuge and a means of reflection. Through layered oil glazes, I create luminous portraits and soft landscapes that feel like memories—tender, imperfect, and true.
Much of my work draws on personal and family moments: childhood memories, hikes with my kids, and the fleeting emotions that motherhood stirs. Nature is a recurring theme, offering me calm when emotions feel too sharp or overwhelming. My landscapes are softened, dreamlike; spaces for the nervous system to settle. My portraits, especially those of mothers, aim to hold space for the truth: the weight of caregiving, the loss of self, the quiet moments that tether us to joy.
At its core, my practice is an attempt to make visible what is often left unsaid. I want mothers to feel seen, not just in their tenderness, but in their exhaustion, their rage, and their resilience. I hope my work offers others a moment of pause, recognition, and light in the messy, miraculous experience of becoming and being a mother.