LAUREL GREENFIELD ART

Hi, I’m Laurel!

I'm a Boston-based painter inspired by moments of joy around the table. All of my paintings feature bold, vibrant colors and capture my most nostalgic food memories. I use saturated colors to capture beautiful fleeting moments like ice cream on a hot summer day, the perfect lobster boil with family, or the perfect girls' night of wine and pizza.

My paintings are perfect as a pop of color in the kitchen for anyone who appreciates how food makes us smile and brings us together.

I didn't go to art school, instead I got a Masters Degree in Gastronomy - a fancy way of saying food studies - which taught me how crucial food is to our personal, community, and cultural identity. I use this knowledge every time I paint and choose subjects, colors, and compositions that maximize joy and nostalgia for the viewer.

So why colorful food paintings?

I grew up surrounded by a food-loving family and my most meaningful memories always have food at the center. Going to Waffle House with my dad on Sundays, planning family vacations around some restaurant we saw on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives, and celebrating Jewish holidays by eating so much I could barely stand up.

I’ve always been a little obsessed with talking about food and I insisted on painting something food-related in every art class, but I didn’t understand why until I started the Gastronomy program at Boston University…

Not only did I get to sit in rooms full of people who appreciated food the way I did, but I learned for the first time how powerful our food memories are and how much they mean to our sense of who we are!

I realized every food painting I ever made was capturing a little piece of myself and my happy memories.

And not only was I telling my own story, I was inadvertently connecting to even bigger, more universal stories. I was connecting to visceral joy and nostalgia.

Once I started getting commission requests from classmates and friends to paint their favorite foods I knew I had tapped into something special.

Today, when people see my paintings for the first time they instantly launch into a story about this family member or that special recipe or some simple yet transformative food memory. I love hearing each and every story!

Ultimately I want to give my collectors every opportunity I can to celebrate their own amazing food memories.

Not only that but I want to help them connect with the visceral, overwhelming joy of being suddenly pulled into a full sensory food memory flashback.

Kind of like the way I feel when I see a black and white cookie and I’m instantly 4 years old and sitting in a deli with my dad drinking Yoohoo.

So yes it’s about food, but it’s also about spreading joy and making time to remember the little things that matter.

When we take a minute to get lost in memories of sitting down to nightly dinner with our families or reminisce about summers spent working at an ice cream parlor or chatting with our grandparents at their neighborhood deli, we’re celebrating who we are and the little moments that taught us what joy really is.

For me, food is joy and food is connection, to myself and to the people I love.

That joy and connection is what I tap into every time I start a new painting.

I fill the canvas with as much color and emotion as I can so it vibrates with the joy of the memories that inspired it

I also believe that the best way for anyone to capture their own joy is through vibrant color.

I love teaching technique to new painters, but what I love more is helping them tap into their own joy so they can make beautiful paintings and let their creativity out in a way that brings them insane amounts of happiness!

I teach in person around Boston occasionally and I’m also the creator of the Feed Your Creative Soul painting membership, the monthly painting membership that revolves around creating a consistent painting practice while learning to paint with vibrant color.

Are your own joyful food memories making their way into your mind yet?!

Want to learn to paint with me? Check out my e-courses!

Want to collect an original painting to add color to your home?