•Artists Statement

Interview

Biography

I was raised in Southern California by creative, progressive parents who routinely asked me "What have you done for the world today?" Dinner table lectures on the importance of nonconformism had a catalyzing effect, but my awareness of art as a vehicle for social change is attributable to a year-long residency I served in twenty-odd years later, in 1988. Funded by the California Arts Council, I worked in community with artists and members of the public at The Woman's Building in Los Angeles. Immersion in this rigorous, politically engaged climate stimulated me in ways that had been neglected in my otherwise excellent academic training at the University of California (BA, 1976) and Claremont Graduate University (MFA, 1982).

In 1988-91 I was honored to join a project called Dialogue Prague-Los Angeles. About twenty artists representing the U.S. and Czechoslovakia engaged in exhibitions and forums in each of the eponymous cities. The Czech and Slovak artists came to LA, and we Angelenos traveled to Prague in the delicate, politically pregnant space between Soviet dominion and the Velvet Revolution. I personally had the curious experience of receiving acknowledgement from the Czech press because of the Social Realist flavor of my artwork. Our project was partially supported by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Otis Parsons School of Art and Design, and numerous private sponsors.

Beginning in 1990, I worked as an artist in residence with culturally diverse populations (including homeless teens, developmentally disabled adults, and schoolchildren) in Los Angeles. This community work, and my studio practice, were assisted by grants the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (1990-1992), the Adolph and Shirley Gottlieb Foundation (1991), and residencies through a program called Artsreach administered by the University of California Extension, UCLA (1990-93).. Later, when I moved to Seattle, I was funded by the Washington State Arts Commission, Seattle Arts Commission, the Seattle Children's Museum Experimental Gallery, and Washington Department of Juvenile Rehabilitation as I continued to serve residencies (with incarcerated youth, hospitalized teens and senior citizens) during 1994 to 2003. In all these contexts, I felt privileged to share my appreciation for collage as a medium of expression that comments on culture and society, empowering individuals to make strong visual statements about their lives.

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, and attempts at spiritual transformation have all been asserted in my work in one way or another. For me, the ceremony of meticulously juxtaposing and overlapping little pieces of paper is contemplative. It's where I go to confront Big Issues. I feel empowered by the act of satirizing current events and popular culture as I integrate text and image. Making art preserves my sanity and salves my cynicism. I flatter myself that I am appropriating and recontextualizing pictures and text in the spirit of Dada and Surrealist collage masters like Hannah Hoch and John Heartfield: politically detached and bemused; passionately outraged and engaged

Between 1987 and 1990, my collages were exhibited in three solo exhibitions at Koslow Gallery in Los Angeles, and numerous group shows in California. The work earned favorable reviews in Art in America, The Los Angeles Times, Artweek, LA Weekly, et al. The political climate of the early 1990s furnished me fodder for new projects, including one called Recycle This (1991), when the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs supported my design and publication of a series of display ads celebrating Freedom of Expression and First Amendment rights.

The move to Seattle in 1993 provided a chance to immerse myself in a rigorous studio practice, distanced from the sometimes cosmetically thin distractions of Los Angeles' social landscape. In 1994 I was awarded a WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship to create a series of miniature artworks about the misunderstood Biblical antiheroine, Jezabel. Illuminated manuscripts provided visual inspiration for these and later works, including a project I named Popular Inquisitions (1995), supported by a grant from the King County Arts Commission. These painted collages depicted parallels between the Spanish Inquisition and contemporary U.S. politics. A Special Projects Grant from the same agency in 1997-8 helped me execute the series Dee Dee Does the First Amendment, where I portrayed the fictitious heroine, Dee Dee Lorenzo, in various situations of allegorical importance to 20th Century political movements. Works of this nature, supported in part by the Seattle Arts Commission, were shown in solo and group exhibitions in commercial, college and non-profit venues between 1995 and 2001, mostly in Washington and California.

It was a special honor to be selected by the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs in 2001-2, to create a permanent public art installation for the new Seattle Justice Center. I portrayed four 20th Century Seattle community activists on recycled serving trays in a project I called Justice Is Served: Celebrating the People Who Work For Change. Concurrently, in collaboration with a group of Seattle artists and writers, I co-coordinated One Year Later, an exhibition of creative responses to the events of September 11, 2001.

Artworks entitled If I Meditate, Will I Be Popular? (1997) and What Do Women Want? Sleep. When Do We Want It? Now. (2001), reflect my divided focus upon personal/ psychological matters and social issues. The narrative in my work continues to change as I explore the paradox between two inner realities: a florid utopian archetype and a bleak, worst-case scenario. The product is intentionally literal and didactic. I see my work as a challenge to the prevailing cultural climate that rewards euphemism and obfuscation.

An Artist Fellowship from Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission during 2002-3 culminated in my solo exhibition, Homeland Service Trays, at Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, Spokane, WA. I used 26 recycled serving trays to comment on the idea of social service in an surveying a spectrum of issues, including but not limited to capital punishment, empire-building, political prisoners, campaign finance reform, and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. A review of the show in Art Papers magazine stated: "Preachy and smart-alecky, Lawrence's almost confessional approach to the political views outlined in her imagery and text invites comparison with such art world anti-heroes as R. Crumb or Joe Coleman. Like them, Lawrence's best pieces carry a wacky, socially charged anger that is also personal. Unlike them, she is a consummate feminist…It is precisely Lawrence's ingenious ability to show us not only her beliefs, but also herself, that is most satisfying." (Frances DeVuono, Art Papers Magazine, 1/04, p. 57).

Since 2002, I have taught in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. My graduate students are schoolteachers: education majors with no art training. I teach studio courses and one called Art and Culture in Community. I occasionally teach as an adjunct in the University of Washington School of Art, and the Interdisciplinary Department of Arts and Sciences. While I do not consider myself a full-time academic, I do take seriously my responsibility to demonstrate methods of critical thinking and empowerment through the practice of studying and making visual art. Especially in places where I know my students will pass this on to their own students, I use collage as a tool of critical pedagogy.

In 2004, nine of my artworks that address inconsistencies in our culture's approach to racial and class justice were selected for exhibition in Beyond Talk: Redrawing Race, a traveling show which originated at The Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle.

The invention of my alter ego, Dee Dee Lorenzo (a ubiquitous political activist who has time to do the legwork I can't seem to muster) provided me with a format and impetus to create numerous artworks integral to six installations and performances in Seattle and Los Angeles beginning in 1997 and continuing to the present day. My new series, Dee Dee Does Utopia, was selected in 2005 for funding by the Creative Capital Foundation. This project, informed by over a hundred e-mail responses from the public to my query "What does Utopia look like to you?" is comprised of (comparatively) large-scale mixed-media works in which I seek to depict as many versions of Utopia as possible. Some of these works are featured in a solo exhibition at Provisions Library Resource Center for Activism and the Arts in Washington, D.C., November 4-December 31, 2005. This is my first East Coast exhibition. A new book about politically engaged artists by Susan Platt, PhD (Midmarch Arts Press, NY), to be published in 2006, will include discussion of and reproductions of my artwork. These milestones bolster a long-held objective to expand my viewing audience beyond the West Coast. It's an exciting season.