Since 2000, the work of Laura Elkins has focused on a performative approach to drawing and painting. After a tour of the White House, soon after moving to Washington, she began painting self-portraits-as American First Ladies, through which she has embraced the complexities of contemporary life. She has gone on to add other personae to her portfolio including Frida Kahlo, Greta Thunberg, and as Freedom, the sculpture that crowns the US Capitol. Recently, the artist drew self-portraits with her hands bound together to express her COVID-generated frustration. In September 2021 “Coping with COVID Self-portrait with Hands Tied” was included in the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, the pre-eminent, open exhibition for drawing in the UK. The work was exhibited in London and toured the UK. In a related, but slightly different approach to portrait painting, Elkins painted actors as their characters in The Line, an online play produced by The Public Theater that addresses the personal toll that the pandemic took on first response workers in New York. The artist earned a degree in architecture from the University of Virginia in 1974, where she studied life drawing and painting, otherwise, she is self-taught. She lives and works nine blocks from the US Capitol in Washington DC.