Deborah Faye Lawrence
Seattle, WA
Deborah Faye Lawrence is a Seattle-based artist whose powerful collages address political events, social activism, feminism and personal history.
Message
Deborah Faye Lawrence works in the tradition of the Dada artists of the 1920s who slashed up capitalist magazines to protest against the horrors of war and society. But her artwork is more diverse in its content. Each one has several layers of meaning. We see the immediate aesthetic coherence, then the main topic in the large image, then as we explore the written texts that surround or overlap the central figure, we read a story or a strong statement. These works are not innocent. Lawrence addresses specific political events, feminism, and personal history, as she undermines cliches and takes on causes. Her sardonic humor wakes us up.
Deborah Faye Lawrence disrupts us as she creates unexpected juxtapositions. Her women are strong and naughty. For example, in “Hen Party” four rooster headed acrobats perch on the feet of others only partially seen. They triumphantly hold at bay an intense onslaught of pointed streamers from every direction, each with a different barbed expletive for women.
Lawrence frequently uses tin TV trays as the ground for her collages. This concentrated format (framed by the rim incorporated into the collage so no need to frame them,) carries overtones of passivity. She contradicts that. She plays with what might be a small space, expanding and contracting it as needed.
Many of her collages salute a single person she admires such as Leonard Peltier Tray 2000 “honors the Native American activist who has spent most of his life in U.S. prisons” as the artist explains.
Several themes appear repeatedly including feminism, concern for the planet, corporate exploitation, gun fanaticism, and manipulation of language. The artist defiantly exposes evils, such as the ongoing destruction of the planet by corporations.
Her works address everything we hold precious: Our planet, our bodies, our diversity, our freedom, our basic belief in opportunity and health care for all. Deborah Faye Lawrence tells us we can and must resist in every way that we know how. Pick your issue and get involved! We cannot afford to withdraw or give up. Our future is on the line.
- Susan Noyes Platt
Statement
I have been using found imagery and text in my artwork for a long time. I consider it my job to enhance a picture’s original meaning as I use it to report on social, emotional, historic and current events. The narrative changes as I explore the paradox between a florid utopian archetype and a bleak, worst-case scenario. Since the moment I adopted collage as a medium, my frustration with the status quo, defiance of authority, rebellion against political conservatism, impatience with the art establishment, attempts at spiritual transformation and interpersonal relationships have all been asserted in my work in one way or another.
I am not a landscape painter, but my vision of the sublime is related to landscape and the people who occupy space in it. I long to find the thread that connects me to everybody else. My artwork is a manifestation of that craving, and I can’t make pretty pictures without facing this fact. I hope my earnestness is leavened by humor.
A typical work might appear on the surface to be a quotation from art history, or perhaps a political cartoon, but I’m really trying to reconcile my bilious personal misanthropy and cynicism with my optimistic, civic-minded urge to nurture, decorate, and explain. I find support in the historical tradition of collage as a medium which originated out of the political outrage and detachment experienced by European artists following World War I.
Text--whether I write it myself or quote other sources--I employ as a framing device and decorative complement to imagery, as well as a tool of propaganda. If there is subtlety or nuance to be found in my artwork (which I do not claim), this may be where it is located, in the juxtaposition of text with image, or in one image’s dissonance or harmony with another. At the best of times, the way the elements fall into place is a coincidence of organic randomness in concert with didacticism.