I make paintings, drawings, prints and 3D models that present as totemic figures, maps of unknown places and futuristic structures. Through my work, I envision a world in which the byproducts of consumerism become a site for reclamation and reinvention. I consider the ways that consumer waste builds on a shared (universal) visual language that is mimetic in nature and transcends geographic location. The imagery found within my work is derived from consumer waste. Cardboard packaging has recently played an important role in the making of my work. In my various art-making processes, these transient objects go through a life cycle that occupy different categories: muse, subject, tool and art object. The object is treated as both an archetype and a building block. Lauren Comito is a Brooklyn-based visual artist and educator. She received her MFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design and her BFA from Tyler School of Art. Comito’s was recently included in the exhibition titled, A Romantic Comedy, at 25Kent through the organization Wallplay in Brooklyn. Her work has recently been exhibited at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, NY, and at Chashama: A Space to Present in New York, NY. She published a limited printed edition with Eminence Grise Editions that has been shown at the Editions and Artists’ Book Fair in New York, Art on Paper in New York and the SOON Paris Art Fair in France. Comito currently works at Montclair State University, teaching courses in the Art and Design Department. She has recently been a visiting artist at the Pratt Institute, Rutgers University, Pace University, UMass Amherst, and Sarah Lawrence College.