At a very young age, Laelanie Larach was dreaming of color, with the goal of being an artist and owning her own showcase gallery. Decades later, her dreams have come true, as the art she used as her escape in Latin America became her reality in Miami.
“I started doing art at a young age when I was 7 years old back in school,” she says. “I remember drawing in my notebooks and just letting my imagination take over my thoughts. Art was my escape during my childhood, I have a fascination with anything related to the art industry. I won several art contests back in my childhood that motivated me to pursue my dream to be a big artist and one day to own my art gallery. One day I decided to create a big oil painting titled “Bosque Misterioso” a mysterious forest of trees and exotic animals, a very detailed painting that I created when I was 15 years old. The artwork inspired me to continue creating more paintings with tropical trees, flowers, and exotic animals. I did that painting back in Honduras located in Central America, a place that inspired me a lot with the beautiful mountains, lakes, and gorgeous traditions.”
Growing up in Honduras, her family took her to a lake, giving her inspiration as “the silence of the lake …it was beautiful. Those beautiful memories stay in my heart and sometimes I use them to create a painting,” she says.
Laelanie says her style depends on her mood and inspiration, but art has always been part of her childhood and dreams.
“Talking about dreams… my biggest goal was to have an art gallery and be able to share my artwork with everyone!” she exclaims. “Several people did not believe in me, that never stopped me. I continued my journey and one day I left my country to pursue my dreams, and came here to Miami in 2012. I remember being part of Brickell Art Walk and other art galleries, also I was always looking for galleries and places to exhibit my artwork, everything I did it alone and I’m proud of it.”
She opened Laelanie Art Gallery in Doral, Florida, managing the business and selling her paintings there.
“Right now I have a very nice art collection that is named “Blue”, it’s tropical and has that coastal energy with vivid beautiful colors! I just love bright bold colors it gives me joy when I’m painting, also when I paint… I love to listen to pop music or techno songs. I can’t paint in a quiet place… I need to have music around me to be inspired and let my imagination run away with my thoughts.”
She became a painter as the bright bold colors can become drastic combinations, she lets her “imagination emerge in the canvas and I just let my inspiration go wild. Flowers and ocean waves are part of my new art collection, the design of the flowers is different from the normal floral painting. I love to paint huge flowers with long petals with swirls and textures. And other days my inspiration goes totally coastal with blue ocean waves and gorgeous sailboats. The medium that I only use is oil on canvas, it has been the only medium used since my childhood, and is a very easy medium to use when I’m painting.”
Her message at heart is “I’m trying to say that your imagination has no limits and that our natural surroundings are beautiful with flowers, oceans, blue skies, butterflies… that represents joy and happiness! Most of them have bright orange with gorgeous gradients and textures, my recent painting “Soul of a Butterfly” is a lovely painting that has orange, magenta, blue shades, and turquoise. You can see the drastic color combinations and my signature design of energy spheres of colors near the butterfly. My artwork also has a lot of circles and waves they are part of my art style, also back in my childhood I remember drawing circles and big eyes and right now I still paint circles and spheres, and sometimes I do paintings of surreal big eyes.”
Owning her own gallery ended up being a plus during the pandemic shutdown as she continued painting and even completed two art collections as well as selling almost her entire art collection during the shutdown.
“Right now I only have a few paintings left at Laelanie Art Gallery, most of them sold. The collection right now in the gallery is titled “Blue” inspired by ocean waves, sailboats, butterflies, and flowers, everything is related to nature and bright strong colors.”
Art rules her world though she plays chess, listens to music, and loves photography, visiting unknown places to take pictures of the beach, trees, flowers, and other objects to inspire her work.
“But most of the time I’m focused on my artwork and at the art gallery,” she says cheerily.
Online at: www.laelanieartgallery.com
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The colorful homeland of Laelanie Larach infuses her work