Exception: Works on Linen and Paper

Annette Lawrence, UNT professor of art in the College of Visual Arts and Design, may be inching toward paint, but her work remains firmly in the realm of drawing. Known for her permutations on calendars, Lawrence continues the theme in this show.

Lawrence considers all of her work to be, and to be constituted by, raw material. Her circle grid drawings are quantitative accounts of personal events and actions translated into data. In Lawrence’s 2016 Conduit show, these grids documented whether or not Lawrence had written in her journal for the day. In this series, the artist is mining her own phone records to fill in black squares on graph paper. Large chunks represent hours of deep discussion, needle-thin slivers are momentary ‘hellos’ and check-ins. We can wonder what happened in these conversations, or we can simple imagine who we called (or didn’t call) that day. They can feel astrological in their comparisons of empirical data about dates and times of events.

Not one to teeter into the waters of self-indulgence, Lawrence works with anonymized, universal data as a way to allow the audience into the conversation. We aren’t seeing the intimate details of her personal life, only the timestamps; the superficial metadata. Her visual language is one of the analog trying its best to impersonate the digital. Whether the paper is graphed, cut, or coiled, there is always a language to the structure that Lawrence is imposing upon the six months of phone calls that constitute the show.

Annette Lawrence’s studio practice is characterized by transforming raw data into drawings, objects, and installations. The data accounts for and measures everyday life. Her subjects of inquiry range from body cycles, to ancestor portraits, music lessons, unsolicited mail, and journal keeping. She addresses questions of text as image, and the relationship between text and code. Her work is grounded in examining what counts, how it is counted, and who is counting. Her process is one of making and unmaking, looking, waiting, recognizing things that go unannounced and remain steady, continuous, and unremarkable on the surface, but hold magic over time.

Lawrence’s work has been widely exhibited and is held in museums, and private collections including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Rachofsky Collection, ArtPace Center for Contemporary Art, Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, American Airlines and the Art Collection of the Dallas Cowboys. She received a 2018 MacDowell Fellowship, the 2015 Moss/Chumley Award from the Meadows Museum, and the 2009 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Award from the Dallas Museum of Art. Her work was included in the 1997 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. She is an alumnus of the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Skowhegan School. She received a BFA from The Hartford Art School and an MFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art. Originally from New York, Lawrence lives and works in Denton, Texas and is a Professor of Studio Art in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas. She will exhibit at the Greater Denton Arts Council Gough Gallery this fall from Oct. 4-Dec.15. On Oct.1, Lawrence will present a talk on the work of On Kawara as a part of the Dia Art Foundation “Artists on Artists” lecture series in New York.

Professor Annette Lawrence’s studio practice is characterized by transforming raw data into drawings, objects, and installations. The data accounts for and measures everyday life. Her subjects of inquiry range from body cycles, to ancestor portraits, music lessons, unsolicited mail, and journal keeping. She addresses questions of text as image, and the relationship between text and code. Her work is grounded in examining what counts, how it is counted, and who is counting. Her process is one of making and unmaking, looking, waiting, recognizing things that go unannounced and remain steady, continuous, and unremarkable on the surface, but hold magic over time.

Areas of Expertise: Drawing and painting, works on paper, text-based imagery, temporary and permanent installations on an architectural scale.

Annette Lawrence is a Professor of Studio Art at the University of North Texas, College of Visual Arts and Design. She received a MFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art, Hoffberger School of Painting, and a BFA in Sculpture from The Hartford Art School, University of Hartford.

Lawrence’s art is widely exhibited and held in museums, and private collections including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Rachofsky Collection, ArtPace Center for Contemporary Art, The Blanton Museum, American Airlines, and the Dallas Cowboys. Lawrence has participated in artist in residence programs in Houston, Texas, Skowhegan, Maine, Johannesburg, South Africa, Tanera Mor, Scotland, and Melbourne, Australia.