Originallyfrom London LaurenceHegarty has lived in New York for more than two decades. Initially trained as an artist Hegarty's interests have wandered over the years
leading him to pursue film studiesandpsychoanalysisas partners
in the conversation that shapes his studio practice.Hegarty has trained as a psychotherapist andhe now maintains a private practice inNew York City.Thoughthe two disciplines –studio art and psychoanalysis– are not
integrated inany way,it is theoverlaps and collisions between them thatshape Hegarty'sart making.Often staged as parades or processions
his installationsemploy found
objectsjostling for space alongside
figures hoisting flags, batteries of rubber cameras, weapons, carriages and
sundry domestic objects. Frequently used are photographs and fragments of
writing plundered from poems, psychoanalytical texts, European art cinema, and liquor
commercials. The general tone is theatrical, the loose organizing principle
narrative while the references trade in allusions to popular culture, political
turmoil, clinical horror and drunken reverie.
Hegarty is also a writer and teacher. For more
than a decade he has taught both BFA and MFA classes in studio art and cultural
studies at Parsons The New School.