A native of Louisiana, Laure Prescott Williamson holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from Louisiana State University, a Master of Art from Marshall University and a Master of Fine Art from Ohio University. She has studied in workshops under Janet Fish, William Beckman, and Philip Pearlstein.

Williamson has taught for the last twelve years at West Virginia State College, Marshall University, and Shawnee State University. She is currently an adjunct at Louisiana State University where she teaches painting and drawing. She is also conducting private classes and workshops in her studio.

Williamson has exhibited in over twenty five juried exhibits, winning several awards, and over thirty invitational, group, and solo exhibitions. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts/ West Virginia Commission on the Arts Professional Development Grant.

She is collaborating with painters Stanley Sporny and Rhea Gary with a continuing traveling exhibit that first stopped at Alexandria Museum of Art in Louisiana, then went on to the Ashland Area Art Gallery in Kentucky. In September 2005, the three artists will exhibit as “The Landscape Redefined” in Wheeling,West Virginia at Oglebay Institute Gallery. Plans to organize the exhibit in Hurricane,West Virginia, Parkersburg,West Virginia and Martinsburg, West Virginia and other venues are underway.

The central Theme of Williamson’s work explores her surroundings, whether it is untouched, pristine nature or the intrusion of industrial structures, which have become an ubiquitous part of our environment. She often juxtaposes the man-made elements with the natural, addressing both environmental and personal concerns.

Aside from landscapes and still life paintings, her love of animals has become another direction of her work. She does commission work in this area.

Just as some of her paintings contrast the pure untouched environment with the industrial one, the more formal aspects of her work contrasts the elements of light and shadow, warmth and coolness, and solidity and fluidity. Her work is perceptual and she delights in putting paint on the canvas. The quality of paint on the surface is just as important as the subject matter.