Lauren Rutten

Lauren Rutten is an interdisciplinary visual artist, writer, and educator based in Marshall, North Carolina. With roots in photography spanning more than 45 years, her practice now integrates writing, painting, mending, collage, and book arts, weaving together diverse media in works that explore body, spirit, and interconnection. At the center of her practice is a meditation on impermanence: how floods, fires, weathering, and time mark the surfaces of both place and self, and how beauty persists within vulnerability.

Rutten holds a BFA in Photography from the University of Delaware and an MA from the joint program at New York University and the International Center of Photography. Her photographs and interdisciplinary works have been exhibited nationally in museums, galleries, and arts centers, including the Hunterdon Museum of Art in New Jersey, The Bascom in Highlands, North Carolina, Weizenblatt Gallery in Mars Hill, North Carolina, and the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. She is the recipient of multiple Artist Support Grants in North Carolina, a New Jersey State Arts Council Fellowship in Photography, and a residency at Penland School of Craft. Alongside her studio practice, Rutten sustained a 35-year career as a professional photographer and continues to contribute to the arts as an educator, mentor, and workshop facilitator.