Laura Jane Petelko is a Toronto-based photographer whose work exists at the intersection of photography and painting. Over a career spanning more than 25 years, she has developed a singular visual language defined by in-camera abstraction, emotional sincerity, and an unwavering commitment to feeling over fact.
Petelko’s practice was profoundly shaped by a three-year period during which she faced the prospect of blindness. Rather than retreat, she responded by stripping her images of information, using blur, light, and form to distill what she considers essential: the emotional truth beneath the surface. The resulting work is at once intimate and otherworldly.
In past, she has collaborated with dancers from the National Ballet of Canada, producing the series MA and Phototropic, which explore transformation, uncertainty, and the grace found in moments of vulnerability. Her series Soft Stories, created with multidisciplinary artist Sara Wood, examines our longing for connection with the natural world.
Petelko’s work has been exhibited at Photo London, Christie’s Eye of the Collector, Expo Chicago, and Scope Art Fair, and is held in private collections across Canada, the United States, and Europe. Her work has been featured in Park Magazine, The Art Newspaper, and Blank Spaces Magazine , amongst other publications.