Lauren Elms has a love-hate relationship with Vancouver. She’s a painter, illustrator and digital designer who believes that while this city has its negatives, there’s so much room for positive growth. Her art is twisted with imagery that expresses psychology and mood disorders through mythology. 

“If you want to describe it in layman’s terms,” she explains, “it’s naked bodies with animal heads dancing around in dreamlike landscapes.” 

Over a leaking pot of tea, Elms tells me that her anxiety— a condition many millennials are familiar with— makes her more empathetic and creative. It was while researching mythology and monsters, that she began seeing links between history and illness, and how it could be expressed through art. 

“It’s taking something that’s ultimately sad and difficult and trying to make something really nice and beautiful,” she says. “You can’t think about yourself in a bad way just because you have something that you don’t understand.”

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Sarah Amormino: Do you think it’s easy to be a millennial artist in Vancouver?

LE: Definitely not. I’m terrible at networking. I don’t go to shows because I’m awful. I don’t strive in that way, which is bad, so I can’t say Vancouver is bad for it because I’m not doing my best part. It’s intimidating, there’s so many other artists here, and a lot of people don’t think they’re good enough, so it’s hard. Maybe it’s just harder to see what’s going on. 

SA: What are some strengths that you see in your art?

LE: I’m a little bit self-depreciating. But I think the narrative aspect is a strength. I read books constantly, and I think that’s really expressed itself through my art—That it’s not just an image, that there’s something going on in it.

SA: What would you say influences your art? 

LE: So many things. So many artists around Vancouver are amazing. There are a lot of female representing artists here which I love, and comic books too. Graphic novels, music, fantasy games… almost everything. I’ll look outside and I’ll see a tree that’s really red and I’ll feel like I have to draw it. 

SA: I feel like you know a lot about cool themes that draw into human life. I really need to step my game up.

LE: We all find our strengths in different things. Maybe it’s because I’m more of an anxious, nervous person, but I tend to hide myself in things that are sentient in a different way— like books, stories and fantasies in my own head— as opposed to reaching out to different people. We all have different things… mine is just hiding in a hobbit hole and not leaving my home.

SA: What is it about the creative process that excites you the most?

LE: Being able to tell a little story, whether or not people get what I try to say through my work, as long as they’re reading something from it. It doesn’t have to be what I want them to think, as long as they’re thinking and feeling something, that’s what I love – allowing someone to have their own story through my work. It’s like Tarot cards, whether you believe they work or not, it’s still a way of pulling something out of your head and allowing yourself to think a little bit deeper into a subject. Even if there’s no real magic in the card, maybe it could help you better understand the question that you asked it for a little more clarity on self-awareness.I love that about art.

SA: Any processes that you’re looking forward to experimenting with in the future?

LE: I really want to start working on big wood patterns and displaying it three-dimensionally. 

SA: When do you know that a piece is finished?

LE: It’s so hard. I constantly pick at it. My Mom always told me to, “Leave room for Michael Angelo”. It’s really hard to stop touching it. But I do find that if at a certain point I’m getting frustrated with it, I’ll leave it for a bit and then come back. It’s usually that feeling of I don’t know what else to do, so I’ll sit back and look at it. Or I’ll leave it and come back until I know for sure it’s done.

SA: Why do you create art?

LE: Because I always have. I started drawing when I was four, and I would always draw really spooky stuff.I don’t think I could ever imagine not doing it, it’s just a part of me.

To learn more about Lauren Elms, visit her website or check out her Instagram.