Art Insights: A Shared Table

Straddling drawing and social practice, Laura Tanner’s works act as archives of regional foodways, shedding light on how recipes and traditions surrounding the gathering table reflect regional challenges and inform collective identity.

Tanner has exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Mint Museum, Springfield Art Museum, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, and the Susquehanna Art Museum. Her current project, Dish has received support through numerous grants, awards, and fellowships, including the South Florida Cultural Consortium Award and fellowships from the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences and the Tulane ByWater Institute.

Recent commissions include a 30-foot installation at the new Miami-Dade County Courthouse and four site-specific mosaic installations in Palm Beach County as part of the city of Boca Raton’s Centennial celebration. In 2023, select drawings were included in the inaugural Art x Climate section of the fifth National Climate Assessment, a two-part congressionally mandated report by the U.S. Global Change Research Program with a mission to assess the science of climate change and variability and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century.

Tanner lives in Boca Raton, Florida, where she is an Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University.