Blog

Seascape Mindscape: New Paintings by Andrea K. Lawson

Andrea K. Lawson will show Seascape Mindscape at Pippa’s Real Tea in Port Townsend, Washington November 1, 2016 through December, 2016.

MIndscape: Featured in the exhibition is Lawson’s new Brain Beauty series inspired by images of the human brain at the microscopic level.

Andrea was recently awarded a public art commission for the Sno-Isles libraries, Camano Island Library Reading Room located in our neighboring poetic farmland of Island County, Washington. The call for a science related artwork spurred her research and interest in the varied forms of our own bodies.

Andrea’s acrylic painting Brain Beauty l is the smaller version of Andrea’s Brain Beauty, Beauty Brain public art Installation. Merging art and science, Andrea has rendered her concept of brain functions, with colorful abstract gestures across nine painted panels, each representing different parts of the brain seen at different levels of magnification. At first glance the paintings look abstract expressionist, but are actually specific images of brain functions such as the neocortex, the retina, the Hippocampus, neurons and glial cells.
Advances in Scientific research and methods of imaging have gathered new visual information about the brain which controls our cognitive processes, our physical movements and even our memories. Both the organ, and the learning process itself, give us the ability to think at a high level and to create, functions which distinguish us as human beings. Andrea sees her paintings of the visual manifestation of these microscopic spaces as metaphors for intellectual metaphysical ideas as well as visual forms evolving from contemporary art history.

Seascape: Her vibrant seascapes evoking northwest landscape, water and light will also be on display. These intimate works were Inspired by local views of the Olympic Peninsula’s bays, oceans and skies. While sometimes including tiny details depicting human presence, she also captures wild sometimes abstract layers of color and light evoking the energy of nature and weather.

Andrea paints in her studio overlooking the Port Townsend Bay. She is the recipient of many awards including King County Arts Commission, The Cape Cod Art Association and the Port Townsend Arts Commission. Andrea has taught art for many years in a variety of settings including the Seattle Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Peninsula College. She received her MFA from Parsons New School of Design New York City.

Please join the artist at the Port Townsend First Saturday Gallery Walk, November 5 from 5:30-8 P.M.
Pippa’s Real Tea is located at 636 Water Street, Port Townsend and is open Wednesday through Sunday, 10:00 – 5:00 P.M. http://www.pippasrealtea.com