Debbie Lawson
Debbie Lawson (UK) lives and works in London. She graduated from Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art.
Solo shows include Magic Carpet at the Fergusson Gallery, Perth; Nine Trades of Dundee; Our House at the McManus Galleries, Dundee, supported by the Scottish Arts Council; Living Rooms at Nordisk Kunst Plattform, Norway, supported by the British Council; Dysfuncadelia at Nettie Horn Gallery, London; and Chairway To Heaven at The Economist Plaza, commissioned by the Contemporary Art Society.
Her work is held in the collections of, among others, Charles Saatchi, Mario Testino, the House of Lords, Nottingham Castle Museum, the University of the Arts London, the University of Dundee and in many international private collections.
Recent shows include Picaresque at Ha Gamle Prestegard, Norway; Make Believe: Re-imagining History and Landscape at Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery (with Alan Kane, Susan Collis and others), Ha Ha Road at Oriel Mostyn (with Pipilotti Rist, Rodney Graham, Ceal Floyer and others) and Contemporary Eye: Crossovers (with Jeff Koons, Gary Hume, Grayson Perry and others) at Pallant House Gallery.
Debbie Lawson was the winner of the 2013 JD Fergusson Award
WORK
“My work invites the viewer on a journey through the landscape of the domestic interior, where popular narratives and personal histories are intertwined so that the imaginary and material reality seem inseparable. Visual codes collide, giving form to new animated hybrids with a quietly sinister inner life and aspirations to be bigger than themselves.
At the heart of the work is a focus on the cultural traditions surrounding everyday objects – specifically those found in the aspirational home. And although it sometimes looks elaborate, the impetus behind the work comes from a strippeddown idea of sculpture: the patterned carpet I often use as an outer surface emphasises the innate qualities of form while at the same time disrupting them so that it appears to alternate between three dimensions and two, creating a visual slippage.
My interest in seeing the monumental through the prism of the smallscale or domestic comes from a preoccupation with the picaresque, a specific form of narrative where the central protagonist, a seemingly naive and unassuming character, embarks on a series of episodic adventures, seeing through the apparently innocuous to expose hidden, and sometimes darker, or stranger, meanings.” (Debbie Lawson)
PURCASE
ARTIST:
Debbie Lawson
CATEGORIES:
Objects / 3d
WEB SITE:
www.debbielawson.com
AWARDS:
JD Fergusson Exhibition Award 2013
British Council Artist Award 2009
Eethnal Green Old Town Hall Commission 2009, co-commissioned and curated by Arts Admin
Nine Trades of Dundee Commission 2009
