Beyond the Sea Wall - Catalogue
Ochre Lawson's exhibition Beyond the Seawall draws us into a landscape of desire. Through her line and vision, the artist creates a place that encapsulates notions of purity and remote meditative beauty--that our predominantly urban existence craves.
The dynamism of Lawson's abstraction morphs into more literal forests and mountains from vastly different lands--yet they share qualities that are intrinsic to the notion of “wilderness”. This is a body of work that is jewel-laden--rich with motifs that have been drawn from her journeys in wild places. The beautiful moments from the artist's eye are threaded delicately into the picture plane.
The artist has a long history of devotion to the places that are most at risk in our world. Immersing herself in south-west Tasmania and spending weeks lost--but knowing where she is--in the old growth forests. Her sense of place and feeling for the landscape is absolute. So too is her awareness of man's potential to execute a hell-bent desire to control or destroy the delicate ecological balance that has lasted for millions of years. The artist asks us “to what end”?
Through her residency in Moriumus on the remote coastline of Japan, Lawson found one of the oldest and rarest of things in the developed world; a native and indigenous forest not ravaged by the hand of man. Plants endemic to the region still survive. Yet, despite best intentions, man has managed to work to change that place too. In the aftermath of the catastrophic Tsunami of 2011 sea walls were built to block the chance of further devastation, if indeed it were to happen again in this area. Notwithstanding the carnage that the natural disaster wrought on the coastal communities, the perceived solution--a vast concrete wall locking out the waves of the future--has disconnected the people from their ocean to the forest. The concrete pervades every view, dislocating their landscape and destroying their genius loci.
A fundamental tenet of being human is to belong—belong to a family, belong to a culture, belong to a country. When that link is broken--when a place is destroyed or altered--our lives are changed as the land is, and usually it's not for the better.
Through the artwork of Lawson, this phenomenon is drawn to our attention. The artist does not preach from the soapbox but celebrates what exists in this world and the good that abounds from our coexistence in it--rather than the conquering of it.
Ralph Hobbs (Nanda/Hobbs gallery)
June, 2018
The dynamism of Lawson's abstraction morphs into more literal forests and mountains from vastly different lands--yet they share qualities that are intrinsic to the notion of “wilderness”. This is a body of work that is jewel-laden--rich with motifs that have been drawn from her journeys in wild places. The beautiful moments from the artist's eye are threaded delicately into the picture plane.
The artist has a long history of devotion to the places that are most at risk in our world. Immersing herself in south-west Tasmania and spending weeks lost--but knowing where she is--in the old growth forests. Her sense of place and feeling for the landscape is absolute. So too is her awareness of man's potential to execute a hell-bent desire to control or destroy the delicate ecological balance that has lasted for millions of years. The artist asks us “to what end”?
Through her residency in Moriumus on the remote coastline of Japan, Lawson found one of the oldest and rarest of things in the developed world; a native and indigenous forest not ravaged by the hand of man. Plants endemic to the region still survive. Yet, despite best intentions, man has managed to work to change that place too. In the aftermath of the catastrophic Tsunami of 2011 sea walls were built to block the chance of further devastation, if indeed it were to happen again in this area. Notwithstanding the carnage that the natural disaster wrought on the coastal communities, the perceived solution--a vast concrete wall locking out the waves of the future--has disconnected the people from their ocean to the forest. The concrete pervades every view, dislocating their landscape and destroying their genius loci.
A fundamental tenet of being human is to belong—belong to a family, belong to a culture, belong to a country. When that link is broken--when a place is destroyed or altered--our lives are changed as the land is, and usually it's not for the better.
Through the artwork of Lawson, this phenomenon is drawn to our attention. The artist does not preach from the soapbox but celebrates what exists in this world and the good that abounds from our coexistence in it--rather than the conquering of it.
Ralph Hobbs (Nanda/Hobbs gallery)
June, 2018
(Photography by Felicity Jenkins)
This exhibition is based on the wild northern coastline of Japan and the wilderness alpine region of Tasmania.
The paintings and drawings in this exhibition were started in 2017 while I was an artist in residence in a remote coastal community in Japan that had been heavily affected by the Tsunami in 2011. A massive seawall was being built all along this most beautiful coastline where the local fisherpeople had made their living for hundreds of years. The seawall was so high I was forced to climb on top to be able to see the coastline and beyond.
Also included in this exhibition are works based on the alpine wilderness country in Tasmania where I was hiking and sketching for over a month also in 2017. This pristine wilderness is also one where man is constantly a threat to its existence yet saving these increasingly precious areas of biodiversity will only serve to save human kind.
I am interested in the concept of nature as a defining force, one that humans are dependent on yet constantly fail to see the absolute importance of protecting. Though the visceral nature of paint, mark, the drawn line, form, memory and emotional response to the landscape I try to represent the wild places that I travel to.
These places are not only places of beauty but places that are essential to our existence on the planet. Increasingly humans are becoming less connected to nature and even less so to the hard to access remote pristine wilderness areas. Painting these places are integral to my practice to not only bring attention to these places but also because the foliage, forms and innate energy of these places reminds one of the ultimate meaning of life.
The process of simplification through intense observation of the landscape is one I find endlessly challenging and interesting. I attempt to find a mark and colour with my brush that expresses the spiritual essence of the land, a sense of place, and my own felt response to being part of nature.
Ochre Lawson 2018
This exhibition is based on the wild northern coastline of Japan and the wilderness alpine region of Tasmania.
The paintings and drawings in this exhibition were started in 2017 while I was an artist in residence in a remote coastal community in Japan that had been heavily affected by the Tsunami in 2011. A massive seawall was being built all along this most beautiful coastline where the local fisherpeople had made their living for hundreds of years. The seawall was so high I was forced to climb on top to be able to see the coastline and beyond.
Also included in this exhibition are works based on the alpine wilderness country in Tasmania where I was hiking and sketching for over a month also in 2017. This pristine wilderness is also one where man is constantly a threat to its existence yet saving these increasingly precious areas of biodiversity will only serve to save human kind.
I am interested in the concept of nature as a defining force, one that humans are dependent on yet constantly fail to see the absolute importance of protecting. Though the visceral nature of paint, mark, the drawn line, form, memory and emotional response to the landscape I try to represent the wild places that I travel to.
These places are not only places of beauty but places that are essential to our existence on the planet. Increasingly humans are becoming less connected to nature and even less so to the hard to access remote pristine wilderness areas. Painting these places are integral to my practice to not only bring attention to these places but also because the foliage, forms and innate energy of these places reminds one of the ultimate meaning of life.
The process of simplification through intense observation of the landscape is one I find endlessly challenging and interesting. I attempt to find a mark and colour with my brush that expresses the spiritual essence of the land, a sense of place, and my own felt response to being part of nature.
Ochre Lawson 2018
