Contributed by Sharon Butler / Our Resident Artist this month is Louisa Armbrust, who joins us from Ghent, NY. Armbrust makes paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations about the places and moments where people and technology meet. As phones and screens take over more of everyday life, people need more places where they can take refuge from them. She explores how our desire for freedom and privacy collide with our dependence on online activity. In a digital culture that usurps so much of our time and attention, Armbrust is interested in the small actions and constructs that push back. In her installation Good Green Earth Shelter, she created a physical space within a gallery made from custom nylon walls that block electromagnetic signals. The little structure gives visitors a break from the pull of their screens and a chance to think.
Fabric, wood, artificial grass, pillows, light, 55 x 48 x 48 inches
crayon, and sumi ink on paper, 10 x 7 inches
In a new series of diminutive sculptures called Support, Armbrust takes ordinary drinking glasses and adds oversized twisted straws. The “crazy straw” trope already belongs to two worlds: the disposable kit of fast food and the silly fun of a kid’s birthday party. Armbrust brings them together to create a new kind of comfort object. Other artists who incorporate everyday housewares into their work include Beth Lipman, who makes clear blown-glass versions of goblets, plates, and candlesticks arranged as still lifes of overflowing banquets that speak to abundance and decay, and Cornelia Parker, who famously flattened silver plates, cutlery, teapots, and trophies with a steamroller. Armbrust, though, targets neither efficiency nor utility. This work instead credits and celebrates doing nothing in particular.
Armbrust tells me that the straws first showed up in In the Dark, an ongoing series of 8 x 10-inch drawings made of watercolor, crayon, and sumi ink that depict people alone at night. Each subject is shown in the liminal space between unplugging from and succumbing to the glowing, addictive screen. Light may traditionally symbolize knowledge and understanding, but it can also suggest prison floodlights or perpetually running machines. For Armbrust, the light is invading the dark spaces – the last places left where we don’t need to doomscroll, read, shop, or do anything other than simply be. In a 2024 interview, Armbrust said that her “biggest influence these days is our ever present connection to the internet. The forces of capitalism are constantly trying to manipulate me, you and everyone we know to extract profit. I am motivated to make work that illuminates the holes in this system.”
the Harvestworks Artist in Residence Program
Louisa Armbrust, Two Coats of Paint Artist Residency, Sunday, November 15–Friday, November 20, 2026.
Open Studio: Wednesday, November 18, 5–7 pm. Two Coats of Paint, 22-19 41st Avenue, 6th Floor, Studio #10, Long Island City, NY. For more information or to schedule an individual visit, email staff@twocoatsofpaint.com with STUDIO VISIT in the subject line or contact Louisa on Instagram at @louisaarmbrust.
Bio: Louisa Armbrust (b. 1972, Ottawa, Canada) earned a BA from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a Postgraduate Diploma and MA from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has participated in exhibitions with institutions such as Artspace, Raleigh, NC, the Children’s Museum of the Arts in New York, Thomas VanDyke Gallery in Brooklyn, Gallery Aferro in Newark, NJ, the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Staten Island, NY, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, CO. She has been awarded residencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts, LMCC Swing Space, a New Works Project Grant from Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center, and the Vermont Studio Center.
Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6bS7QvPoOTtHVNJ9ZfYIYq?si=344af774f7a74f9c
About the author: Sharon Butler is a painter, publisher of Two Coats of Paint, and director of the Two Coats of Paint Residency Program.
