I’m Corey La Rue, an artist and activist in Los Angeles, creating paintings that weave my Mexican heritage with the city’s raw earth. Using oil, oil pastel, charcoal, indigo, cochineal, and local soil on wood panels and paper, I explore the tactile interplay of self and landscape. My work, inspired by Jung’s psychological landscapes and my Za-zen Buddhist practice, captures the flora and fauna of both nature and the psyche, balancing form and emptiness.

A near-fatal motorcycle accident in 2023 left my right arm unusable, so I relearned to paint with my reconstructed left hand. This journey shapes my art, a bridge between loss and resilience, memory and hope. Grinding pigments in a molcajete and mixing LA soil into paint, I create textured surfaces that invite viewers to “touch” with their eyes. Blues and purples from Oaxaca’s pigments meet the earth’s grit, evoking stillness and movement.

My ethos is rooted in connection-between heritage and home, mind and land. Painting is my meditation, a way to honor what’s lost and embrace what’s possible. I invite viewers to feel the earth’s pulse in my work, finding their own stories in its textures and quiet spaces.