Artwork of the Month - November 2006
New York
Artist: Louise Lawton
Medium: Charcoal and gesso on board, 2006
Status: Loaned by the artist
Item No.: -
The Artist and her Work
Louise Lawton is influenced massively by the urban environment, the artist's source material has come from London, New York and Hong Kong. Making reference to traditional drawing techniques, Louise creates highly distinctive black and white work with charcoal on gesso boards. Her original and contemporary compositions look at the city and groups of people from a variety of angles. Lawton's focus is on mass-urbanisation, the pattern behaviour of crowds and the absence of individual identity within cities' rat race.
As the artist states:
I am particularly interested in rush hour and the flow and capacity of the crowds emphasises the patterns and pace of the city. I am interested in the counterweight of this pace, looking at queues and the amount of waiting that takes place. Whether the figures in my work are moving or not, I aim to create paintings that are in someway philosophical, that have a silence or stillness about them,"
Her most recent cityscape of Manhattan, looks at the structure of the city itself. New York (above) is drawn in immaculate detail and leads the eye through the dynamic, impossible angles of this metropolis into a conglomeration of abstract mark making. It is shown alongside another work, High Street.
If you would like to see more of Lawton's work, she is presently Artist in Residence at 'the gallery', Grange House, St John Street, St Peter Port, Guernsey, just a short walk from the Museum; alternatively, visit her web site.
