Born in Bogotá and raised by the Mediterranean shores of Mallorca, Laura Mila is now based in London. She brings a deeply tactile, beautifully fresh energy to contemporary art. Her creative spirit is as fluid and vibrant as her background, and entirely unfiltered.

Step into her studio to find her fuelling up on an iced latte from her favourite Colombian coffeehouse (Amar Café in Chelsea). She’ll be blasting an eclectic playlist that jumps from Latin music to Ezra Collective. Or she might be listening to vintage cassettes beamed straight to her AirPods. When it comes to the canvas, Laura often ditches traditional rules and brushes and will use her bare hands to feel the texture. This builds the first layers of her large-scale abstract works. She describes this physical process as a slow dance on the studio floor.

Laura’s work is an intimate map of her history. She layers each canvas with rich textures and bold Mediterranean tones inspired by Joan Miró. Every piece features a signature touch of gold leaf, a nostalgic nod to sneaking into her sculptor father’s workshop as a child. She originally trained in small-scale illustration and completely broke boundaries by moving to expansive canvases. Constantly creating and bringing it back to her roots, Laura is starting to explore the idea of installations made from repurposed coffee sacks to create unique art that honours her great-grandfather’s plantation in Colombia. For Laura, making art is ultimately about connection and healing. She is working on using her platform to fund education and create opportunities for marginalized children in Colombia. As Laura puts it, “Life is too short to keep it all to yourself.”

Artist Statement

My work has developed from Illustration into large abstract paintings. I work with soft pinks and pastel tones, working through gesture, layering, and repetition to explore memory and the feeling of a place, both as it’s remembered and as it shifts over time. My work sits somewhere between the places I grew up – Colombia and Mallorca. It’s less about describing a specific landscape, and more about holding onto a sense of it, something felt rather than clearly defined or drawn out. I often use delicate traces of gold leaf within the surface of the painting. It catches the light in subtle ways, sometimes barely visible, sometimes more present, bringing a quiet sense of movement and change depending on where you stand.

Artist’s Process

My process is quite intuitive, I tend to build paintings gradually, letting layers settle and respond to one another rather than working towards a fixed outcome. The surface develops over time through small adjustments, adding, removing, softening, until something begins to hold together. I’m interested in how painting can carry emotion without needing to explain it. The work doesn’t tell a story directly, but instead creates a space where different feelings, softness, tension, calm, can sit alongside one another. Lately, I’ve been thinking more about how light and environment affect the work. The way colour shifts throughout the day, or how certain materials respond to changing conditions, has started to feel increasingly important in how the paintings come together. I’m interested in how painting can exist in a more everyday way, outside of formal contexts, and how it can offer a moment of pause or stillness. In an environment outside of museums or galleries, but in the ordinary and residential homes of many of us where art means and signifies the essence of creation. I’m interested in work that holds space for quietness and intimacy, and as I continue to refine both my visual language and how the work exists beyond the studio, it is an honour to be creating something out of nothing in a world that is rapidly changing and not slowing down.