awake goodbye - andy Lawson•••••

andy Lawson solo show

Andy Lawson?s second solo show in London presents a body of new work that investigates the appropriation of materials, alongside other works from a practice that is often reactive and opportunistic.

Lawson displays work created using drawing machines that utilise the process of idiosyncratic drawing tools; mollusc?s teeth. Once the scourge of the artist - having destroyed images and paper in the studio - the invertebrates have been put to work to construct maps and diagrams that harness elements of chance and explicitly reference the evidence of their making.

The system of setting up tight parameters prior to the execution of the work is echoed in an installation of paint skin paintings whose construction shares a further commonality with the mollusc drawings, namely; a process of working that has been adapted to fit within the contingency of living in London, the place the artist refers to as ?the thief of time?.

Further on the city provides a point of inspiration for Lawson?s itinerant bent; capturing images in the local environment is an ongoing preoccupation; photographs of people disarmed by the falling snow, carrier bags caught in trees and worn notices are juxtaposed amongst other photographic work that attempts to draw our attention to the often overlooked.

Responding to the setting within the Sir John Cass School of Art, Media and Design, the artist has created a site specific piece of work in the foyer corridor (the passage through which all visitors to the exhibition must pass) by rendering on the walls an inventory of words selected from one of the artists ongoing collections; collections derived from a myriad of sources in the artist?s local environment - if such a thing could be said to exist in today?s globality?

Andy Lawson (born 1968), graduated from Sir John Cass School of Art, Media and Design, London Metropolitan University in 2000; he lives and works in east London and is a Senior Lecturer at London Met University and is currently studying for his MA in Fine Art, at Wimbledon College of Art.



This project has been supported by London Metropolitan University, Research Council fund. a.lawson@londonmet.ac.uk/ andylawsonart@hotmail.co.uk