Before modern technology, robots were fantastical childhood inventions; unique, homemade toys, fashioned together in the garden shed from old bits and pieces of junk, glue, and string, willed alive with magic, excitement, and wide-eyed wonder and anticipation.
Artist Lauren Briére captures this bygone nostalgia in her “Robots in Rowboats” series of paintings. A “doodler” from childhood, Briére loved to draw and states “I’m lucky to say I was born an artist and I’ve never considered doing anything else”. Her formal training included studying illustration at The Massachusetts College of Art & Design where her hard-earned journey to where she is today began.
Briére’s expertly rendered oil paintings of robots in differing situations and locations tug at our very heart strings. Robots in Rowboats have personality and express how we feel as humans, the fun, the good times and adventures, but also moments of quiet thoughtfulness, expressing our alone times and our vulnerability. They are both children and adults, there’s a robot for everyone, for how we feel from day to day. The bots interact with wildlife and weather, sleep and dance, dream, celebrate holidays, go camping, are happy, scared and so very alive! When I asked which bot Briére identified with most she explained “All of them really. Artists are their work to a degree. We eat, breathe and sleep with it in our hearts.”
Working from her home studio in Austin, where she paints and processes orders, Briére travels the length and breadth of the country selling her works at art festivals, galleries, gift shops as well as operating her online store - https://www.robotsinrowboats.com. She also considers commissions, her rules are - “As long as your request is simple and sweet”.
Briére has created music videos for The Weepies and written 2 books to date, “An Alphabot Book”, and a gorgeous coffee table book - “The Wistful Whimsies” volume 1, with volume 2 in the works, all books are suitable for all ages. Her bot paintings have also been featured on the inside of umbrellas; “Over Our Heads” was an early experimental venture she embarked upon when the bots were just being introduced.
Now 10 years into “Robots in Rowboats”, there’s no shortage of creativity, inspiration or enthusiasm for this series, when I asked if any bots were influenced by certain people Briére answered, “No, not particularly. Sometimes things are simply as they seem and more profound for it”. Her work has a beautiful honesty about it, she tells me - “Sometimes the simplicity is complicated enough”.
Favorite artists include Edward Hopper, William Joyce and David Shannon; their dreamy, painterly styles are apparent in Briere’s oil paintings. Oil is a preferred media due to its generous drying time and finished look.
Everyone has at least one favorite bot and Briére’s is “Waiting Bot.” She explains, “It’s of a robot sitting in a diner booth looking out into an apparent window, indicated by the shadows and lighting on the wall next to it. We’ve all sat in that booth, waiting for our food, a friend, and a moment.” Perhaps this bot is in the same diner that inspired Edward Hopper for “Nighthawks”?