ABOUT

Laura Jade is an Australian artist, lighting designer and STEAM educator based in Castlemaine, Victoria. Her practice brings together light, biology, neuroscience and emerging technologies to create immersive, participatory experiences that invite audiences to see perception, cognition and the natural world in new ways. She is drawn to collaborative projects that connect artists, scientists, educators and communities around local stories and ideas.

In 2026 Laura was producer and lead artist of All At Once, a large-scale immersive sci-art installation for the Castlemaine State Festival exploring community, environment and time. In 2025 she won the Spring Sculpture Prize at Lot19 in Castlemaine. Her recent works include Oracle of Time, an interactive installation built around a vintage rotary telephone that draws on the stories of regional towns; AI Tarot, shown at Woodford Folk Festival, Bondi Festival and Uncontained Arts Festival; and Halos of Air. With Cave Urban, she has created large-scale bamboo installations for Woodford Folk Festival and a 12-metre kaleidoscope for Curiocity Brisbane. As a lighting designer, she has lit poet Luka Lesson’s Agapi, and Other Kinds of Love at the National Museum of Australia and the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Many of her interactive works are made with her partner, data scientist Leslie Marsh, and she is a co-founder of the SciArty Society, a regional network connecting artists and scientists.

Her signature work, Brainlight, is an interactive sculpture that turns live EEG brain data into coloured light. Since 2015 it has been experienced by more than 30,000 people, at venues and events ranging from Ars Electronica in Austria, Light Night Leeds and Athens Digital Art Festival to Vivid Sydney, the Powerhouse Museum, a live performance with the Sydney Art Quartet, and The Creativerse 2026 in Bendigo.

Laura has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Australian Museum, the South Australian Museum and the National Archives of Australia, and in festivals across Europe, Asia and South America. She has held residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and in Iceland and Croatia, and has received support from the City of Sydney and the National Association for the Visual Arts.

For more than 15 years, Laura has designed and delivered hands-on STEAM learning for children and young people. In 2026 she created workshops for Bendigo Art Gallery and Discovery Bendigo as part of the VCES Emerging Art Leaders program. Since 2017 she has written and presented science and technology programs for gifted students with G.A.T.E.W.A.Y.S. She also ran an art club for 8–12 year olds in Castlemaine, and her earlier roles include Ideas Lab makerspace for City Of Sydney, Culture at Work, Art Est. and the Macleay Museum.

Laura holds a Master’s in Illumination Design from the University of Technology Sydney, a Master’s in Museum Studies from the University of Sydney, a degree in Biology and Science Communication from Macquarie University, and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the National Art School.

EXHIBITIONS

ARTIST RESIDENCIES

2020 Artist in residence, Waverley artist studios, Sydney
2019 Guest Artist, Cité Internationale Des Arts, Paris, France
2019 Artist in Residence, Woollahra artist studio program, Sydney
2016 Artist in residence, NES Studios, Skagastrond, Iceland
2016 Artist in residence, The Icelandic Textile Centre, Blönduós, Iceland
2016 Artist in residence at UR institute, Dubrovnik Natural History Museum, Croatia
2015 Art + Science research residency at Culture At Work, Sydney
2012 Invited artist in residence for the 44th International Artist Residency and Symposium, Gyor, Hungary

AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS

2021 CBD Activation Grant recipient, City Of Sydney
2019 Carstairs Grant Recipient, National Association for the Visual Arts
2016 Finalist, World of Wearable Art Competition, Queens Wharf, wellington, New Zealand
2014 Finalist, Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, SA Museum
2014 Finalist, Chippendale New World Art Prize, NG Gallery, Sydney
2013 Winner, Toulouse Lautrec portrait competition, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
2012 Finalist, Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, S.A Museum, Adelaide, Awarded “Highly Commended” and chosen for Travelling Exhibition, National Archives of Australia, Canberra
2012 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize Finalist, Double Bay, Sydney
2011 Lloyd Rees Youth Art Award Finalist, Lane Cove Gallery, Sydney
2011 Patron Award, Brain Art Exhibition, Global Gallery, Sydney
2003-2004 Scholarship award, Life Drawing Short Course, National Art School,  Sydney
2003 Scholarship award, Drawing and Illustration Short Course, Whitehouse Institute of Fashion and Design, Sydney

PUBLISHED PAPERS

Jade L., Gentle S. (2019) New Ways of Knowing Ourselves. BCI Facilitating Artistic Exploration of Our Biology. In: Nijholt A. (eds) Brain Art. Springer, Cham

PDF: New Ways of Knowing Ourselves. BCI Facilitating Artistic Exploration of Our Biology

PUBLIC TALKS

2020 Coffee in The Studio, conversations between artists & scientists, National Science Week, Australia
2020 Podcast interview for Johnnys Journeys, FM4 Radio, Vienna, Austria
2020 Light, Art & The Brain, Guest lecture, Macquarie University, Biological Sciences Faculty
2019 The Teenage Brain, Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre, Werrington
2019 Light, Art & The Brain, Guest lecture, University of Technology, Sydney
2018 Light, Art & The Brain, Nerd Nite, Rag & Famish Hotel, Sydney
2018 Light, Art & The Brain, Vivid Festival, Sydney
2018 Artist interview, 2SER Community Radio Station, Sydney
2017 Postfuture, Artist Lecture, Athens Digital Art Festival, Greece
2016 Micro Botany of Iceland, Artist Talk, Colab Gallery, Sydney
2016 A Night Of Disruptive Ideas, Vivid Ideas, Cell block Theatre, National Art School, Sydney
2015 Presented a keynote presentation at Hoy Es Diseno (Design Today) Conference, ICESI University, Cali, Colombia
2015 Brainwave Dinner Lecture, Pyrmont Festival, Culture At Work, Sydney
2015 Backyard Bio-Tech Talk, Biofoundry, Sydney
2015  Brainlight presentation & demonstration, Sydney Science Festival, Australian Museum, Sydney
2015 Brainlight presentation, Sydney Maker Faire, MAAS Museum, Sydney

ARTICLES

COFFEE IN THE STUDIO
RADIO 4 AUSTRIA
ART THE SCIENCE
THE CREATORS PROJECT 
VOLUMETRIC MAGAZINE
TREND HUNTER
ILLUMNI
RALLA 
UTS
DIFFUSION RADIO
DAILY TELEGRAPH
SCOOP IT
AMUSINE

EDUCATION

2014-2015 Masters of Illumination Design, University Of Technology, Sydney
2013-2014 Masters of Art Curation and Museum Studies, University of Sydney
2012-2013 Bachelor of Science (Biology) with a Bachelor of Arts (Science communication)
2005-2007 Bachelor of Fine Art, National Art School, Sydney