Lorraine Lawson’s paintings have a spare, zen-like quality about them, which comes through in her fine and carefully balanced compositions, her restrained, often metallic palettes and suggested in her use of calligraphic references. Her work is textured and layered, but so refined, which is quite amazing considering the intensive process involved in creating these pieces!  Inspired by the time worn, weathered surfaces that bear the cultural fingerprint of places she’s encountered in her travels, Lawson recreates this effect using scraps of papers, scores and photos applied to canvases that are worked with mediums, compounds and drippy paint, then stenciled, squeegeed, and scratched, pealed back and rebuilt until all elements have coalesced. The resulting work is imbued with a subtle intensity and deep richness with a cadence, a rythym, a non-objective language of it’s own.

Tanren

Out of Context

Cannery Row

Recently, I was treated to a rare, behind the scenes look into the  Lorraine Lawson’s Campbell studio and all the wonderful chaos that makes the magic of her work possible.

Bright and big and drippy.

Printed rag paper.

Worktable camouflage – can you find the spray bottle?

Calligraphy on rag paper.

Number stencil.

Sheet music.

Calligraphic flourishes on a work in progress.

Scraping back layers – part of the table.

Painting detail.

Craqueleur.

Paintings everywhere, Lorraine Lawson is extremely prolific and works on a number of pieces at any given time.

Work in Progress.

Under layer.

Diptych.

I love following the artist’s process in the studio, how she takes the spark of an idea from some physical material and manipulate and transform them until they take on another life entirely – it really is magic!

You can see Lorraine Lawson’s her work on her website, LorraineLawsonFineArt.com or see it in person at the following locations:

Los Gatos Museum Gallery, Los Gatos, California

Iwasawa Oriental Art Gallery  Los Gatos, California

Stockwell Cellars Santa Cruz, California

O’Hanlon Center for the Arts  Mill Valley, California

Manna Gallery  Oakland, California

Studio Seven  Pleasanton, California

Studio E in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida