John Lawson “Whistle Blowers”
Chelsea 27 (Artemisia Gallery, Azart Gallery and MZ Urban Art)
This event has ended.
From a very young age John Lawson has looked at the world through his own particular lens.
He grew up in rural England, the son of a Baptist minister. During his university days he moved to Louisiana, USA making as dynamic a change as you can make and stay within the English-speaking world. There he settled for many years, absorbing the local color and culture, initially supporting his art by working as a house painter and carpenter. He was living in New Orleans when his home, studio and decades of work were ,caught up in Hurricane Katrina and under water for six weeks. This prompted him to move his family north. He currently divides his time between the hustle of New York City and the rural countryside of Sheffield, Massachusetts.
“Whistle Blowers”, his first solo show at MZ Urban Art in NYC exhibits three of his distinct styles which have been shaped by his geographic and climactic experiences combined with a profoundly embedded spirituality.
Inspired by a vision of thousands of strands of discarded Mardi Gras beads shimmering on St Charles Avenue in New Orleans, Lawson’s pre-Katrina work concentrated on capturing the vibrancy of the Crescent City. Over more than a decade, he created five beaded pianos, many other beaded musical instruments, a 53ft beaded bar top mural for the Audubon Hotel, hundreds of objects de art, foyers and corridors of beaded sculptures. One of these pianos and a few examples from this prolific genre are showcased in this show. At first sight, many of these pieces appear playful but they are in fact a satirical take on political and socio-economic subjects.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the surrounding areas, he was finally allowed to return to his home once the waters had receded. There he found years of films, photographs, letters, sketches, drawings and art supplies destroyed having sat in 9ft of contaminated flood water. He harnessed his anger and breathed new life into the damaged items by transforming them into new works and preserving them in encaustic wax.
Lawson is currently working in large scale portraiture using the medium of collage, a natural transition from the encaustic pieces. Lawson talks of “observing everyday life as an animated puzzle and mystery, rejoicing in the details.” His collage works are intricate and beautiful with the subject matter seeming to morph before the eyes of the viewer.
John Lawson is widely collected around the world and is placed in many diverse and respected museums and institutions.
Media
Schedule
from April 17, 2014 to May 10, 2014
Opening Reception on 2014-04-17 from 18:00 to 20:00