T. Allen Lawson August Show

As a gallery owner, I’ve always felt that art is more than just a noun. Art informs our daily lives in many ways, and colors the unique path we each follow. Art is a process. It is how we choose to live and at its best, art can be who we are.

Really good painters are often eloquent explaining how art permeates the process of what they do. Tim Lawson is one such artist. Talk to him for a time and it becomes clear that while he always starts with an exquisite sensibility to the existing natural world, his art is not complete until he finishes a delicate dialog with the myriad creative elements that serve to connect him to his work. He works slowly, meticulously, and this creative dance can, and occasionally does, take years.

“I start with the recognition that if the painting is high key, it’s the darker areas that become important. Or if the scene is dark, it’s the lighter areas that matter. That’s my jumping off point.” Lawson goes on from there to demonstrate how design elements change with each successive drawing or thumbnail sketch of a scene, and how color, texture and hue get amended as he paints.

A tree loses a branch on one side; it grows back on the other. Certain windows in a house disappear. Shadows lengthen and darken and move slightly left. The white trim on a seaside cottage at dusk begins to glow in the gloom. A moon that once rose in the sky over a Maine lake finds itself hovering over a riverbank in Missouri. Tim Lawson slowly and carefully amends the existing environment and, when he is finally done, we are treated to a transcendent new world brought into being by his considerable talent.

Finally, there is a unique aspect of Tim Lawson’s work that deserves special mention. Because he does his own matting, framing and gilding to complement each particular piece, be it painting drawing or pastel, the harmonic emphasis that each frame gives to a Lawson work is pitch perfect. No commercial framer could ever have such intimate knowledge of what the artist is trying to say. Lawson’s skill in presenting his art is unrivaled.

What you are about to see will give you much pleasure. Enjoy the art.

John Ames