Lauren Halsey Introduces the Elite Art World to South Central L.A.

Entering Lauren Halsey’s studio, which sits on a low-key corner in South Central LA, there is the feeling that the quasi-industrial space has been subsumed by Halsey’s creations. The studio does not merely house art, but has become art. On the unsurprisingly sunny Saturday when I visit, the layout bursts and gleams, in contrast to the concrete surroundings outside. On broad tables, palm trees made of acrylic, resin, and feathers loom over glittered, wood-mounted cutouts of Halsey’s heroes, who often happen to be local heroes. The scene has come alive, bustling with body builders, members of Halsey’s family, and celebrities like the rapper MC Eiht, whom I recognize from Menace II Society. Everyday denizens commingle with the well-known, imparting not just an image, but the texture and intimate thrills of Cali life.

Halsey is inconspicuously dressed in a hoodie and sneakers, and discusses her practice with nonplussed clarity of vision and purpose. Her voice is smooth, lilting: “The work will reference South Central, as it always does,” she tells me. “What I love about these is I can really get into a hyper–specificity. Down to, like, my cousin’s car or the doughnut shop on the corner.” Halsey turns and points to those figures, which will later be rendered into massive murals with a combination of spray paint graffiti and photography. They seem to preside over the whole scene, contributing to the sense that the work is in memory and recognition of those who are dead yet remain present. Halsey’s partner, nearby, spatters glitter onto a photograph.

From the particularity of her experiences, memories, people, and places, Halsey’s interpretations take flight, and the result is a kind of urbane fantasia: the magical land of Oz meets South Central. Halsey tells me that she is attempting to “summon a world” suffused with “an ethos of funk.” The Technicolor palette is inspired by settings as varied as Day-Glo signage or her grandmother’s living room couch. Color is a locale and a mood. She points to a photograph of a stylish woman with an impossibly sculptured updo: “Her hair may not have been that neon.” Within fine art, certain materials, such as cardboard, cork, plastics, glitter, or home photography, are often dismissed. Halsey’s enthralling recombinations testify to the alchemical wonder of the mundane.

Halsey, 36, has lived and worked in the neighborhood her whole life. Her family has been here since the 1920s, and it’s clear that her roles as artist and politically engaged community member are not divisible. During the pandemic, Halsey turned the community center she was developing nearby into a distribution center for organic-produce boxes. She absorbs the details of her neighborhood, remixes its images and feelings, and reflects those familiar sights, sounds, and people back to the community through artistic and architectural works. It is, in this way, a local practice meant for a local audience. But in recent years, as her star has risen in the art world, that hyperlocal vision has been exported all over the world.