Lauren Williamson Selection

The Green Ray
2000, oil on linen, 112 x 102cm

Stellar
2000, oil on linen, 137 x 137cm

Tapestry
1999, oil on linen, 84 x 112cm

Biography and Qualifications

Born Melbourne, 1957
Currently lives and works in Sorrento

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting), RMIT, 1985

Description of Work

Williamson's earlier work showed magnified scenes of flowers, fruit and insects in the manner of seventeenth-century European allegorical paintings, tending towards suggestions of abundance, but also transience, decay and decadence.

More recently, the darkness and instability underlying her images is more forcefully expressed. The flowers are placed within deserted, threatening settings - sci-fi grids, mine shafts, abandoned factories lit with an acid light. It appears that the flowers, for all their beauty and "perfection", could be the unexpected results of a genetic experiment or industrial accident, threatening to engulf their surroundings with vine and perfume.

In other works, Williamson disrupts the illusionistic surface as though lifting the paint from the canvas like a skin, revealing the two-dimensional physicality of the paint, before resolving the images again into "stable" illusion.

Brilliantly coloured and meticulously constructed, Williamson's virtuoso technique allows her to express her interest in the overpowering or destructive aspects of a life-force, and its disguise through scenes of apparent calm and beauty.

Exhibitions

Williamson has held four solo exhibitions since 1988. Other exhibitions include:

• Three Peninsula Artists, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 1999
• Farah Damji Fine Art, New York, 1994

Collections

Artbank, Sydney; private collections in Australia and the United States

Selected bibliography

"Artists Speak", Broadsheet, vol 19, March 1990, Adelaide Festival Issue

LUDEMAN, Brenda, "Lauren Williamson - The Abrogation of Light", Agenda, volume 3, issue 4, 1989

MILLAR, Ronald, The Herald, 23/11/88, Melbourne