Laura Spalding Best's artwork documents and dissects the urban landscape of the American West. Best is interested in describing and quantifying place and exploring mundane iconography and infrastructure. Her oil paintings on found objects emphasize and celebrate the strained overlap of the romantic southwestern desert and its modern support system. Best is specifically interested in the moments when the raw beauty of a desert landscape is abruptly met by concrete, or when a mirage in the distance blurs the lines between street lights and a mountain. These moments are conversely problematic and undeniably beautiful. Best's current body of work addresses environmental issues and water use in the urban desert and examines the necessary, complex, and sometimes absurd relationship we have with our natural resources.

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