Laria Saunders creates digital photo-assemblage paintings, NFT’s and animated paintings that come alive to music.  Her paintings are uniquely assembled by collaging bits and pieces of texture photos that she acquires from walking on the street. On her iPhone, she uses 20-70 images per painting; layering, blending and incorporating texture, line, form and color into her palette.

Saunders explores the idea of humanity’s inherent artistic drive with Agape as interconnectivity and Eros of purpose; both evolving in increasing levels of creativity and self-awareness with the power to transform pain. The "column" central in many of her works, references this universal drive and is also personal and reflects her own willpower to overcome suffering. For over 21 years, she survived debilitating neurological pain; consequently most of her work was created bedridden, in the dark.

In Saunders’ New Orleans series, she utilizes hundreds of photos taken from NOLA's streets. The distinctive architecture, peeling paint, aging walls, vibrant colors are all incorporated and then animated into what she refers to as “a visual dance.”  The video paintings are influenced by a family of jazz musicians and aficionados and in this New Orleans series, she collaborates with her father, Theo Saunders; a jazz pianist, composer and arranger.

Saunders has lived in Boston, New York, California and India and currently resides in central Mexico.  As a former award-winning photographer and dancer, she turned to the digital space ten years ago, as a way to depict invisible pain through a series of self-portraits. She then found solace in the abstract arena and explains, “The abstract space is poetically similar to dance; the accents, fields and valleys are open to interpretation and have an alternate rhythm, cadence and consciousness to the figurative space.”

Saunders is a self-taught artist from four generations of painters and performers. She received a Bachelor of Arts from University of California - Los Angeles in World Arts and Culture. Due to her decades-long struggle with pain, Saunders is a newcomer to the art world, but her body of work spans ten years. Her paintings have been collected by Google, Microsoft, Warner Media and Sony Pictures Entertainment.