A Matter of Pleasantries

Stinson House, Houston, TX | November 7-December 6, 2025

In this new work, Walker highlights the interconnected nature of her practice, using painting, sculpture, and animation to create new compositions about an imaginary world she refers to as the Obscure Domestic Realm. Inhabited by this intimate world are leaky beer cans, oozing blood fountains, a lavender tub who bleeds out of her faucet, and two pink toilets who may or may not be lovers, just to name a few. This strange exhibition serves as a means of exchanging pleasantries, between this world and viewers, as well as between Lauren and her newfound arts community in Houston. A Matter of Pleasantries amplifies movement, exchange, materiality, and the awkwardness of first encounters.

The heart of the exhibition is a stop-motion animated short film by the artist, made up of hand-painted cardboard sets, paper pulp sculptures, glazed ceramics, and spray foam. Alongside the projected animation, the set and characters are presented to viewers as their own entities. Materially rich, small-scale paintings born from stills of the animation also populate the space; recycling objects from the film to use for mark-making.