Art Archive Featured Artist: Lawrence W. Lee

Meet the artist from the art archive. A true original, best known for his distinctive shamanistic imagery, Lawrence paints for fans of Southwestern art in his studio in Arizona. Its strong, instantly recognizable brand is not accidental. This savvy businessman understands his audience and goes to meet their tastes. Lawrence's work reflects the colors and themes of the American Southwest in all its mystique and magic. This smart, strategic approach to art has allowed Lawrence to earn a living solely as an artist since 1979, selling millions of dollars worth of paintings.

An endless source of invaluable art career advice, Lawrence shares how he creates the art that buyers want, whether it be by carefully researching his client base or evolving his style as the market changes.

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1. IMAGES OF SHAMANS AND IMAGES OF THE SOUTHWEST OF AMERICA IN YOUR WORKS. WHERE DO YOU GET INSPIRATION FROM AND HOW DID THE PLACES YOU LIVED AFFECT YOUR STYLE?

I have lived most of my life in Tucson, Arizona. I moved here when I was 10 years old and went to college at Northern Arizona University. There I got to know a little about the Navajo and Hopi culture. When I was a graduate student, my roommate was a Hopi who was born in Second Mesa and still had a wife and child. From time to time, he and I got into his old pickup truck and drove through the plains of Northern Arizona in the foggy early hours of the morning through the most magical places. His wife was kind enough to share stories from the Hopi tradition with me, such as the story of the Spider Woman who taught people how to weave. I don't know if that was the immediate reason for what I'm doing, but I will never forget the feeling that surged through me as we drove through these desert stretches of road with purple mesas in the distance, like the first golden hue of the sun. began to invade our surroundings. The image is so strong that it has stayed with me for decades.

When I first started showing my art, I was drawing images of people. I thought I was doing great things, but people at art shows said, "Why would I want someone I don't know hanging on my wall?" As much as I argued, I just couldn't sell the painting. I remember - through the haze of decades - that I was in my living room lamenting this sad state of affairs and looking at a profile picture of a woman I got from a gallery. I was in the southwest, so I decided to add a little southwest to the picture. I put the pen in her hair and took the painting back to the gallery. Sold in a week. The lesson from this incident was that obviously - as soon as I added something like American Indians - the picture became desirable. I realized that people who come to Tucson, whether visiting or living, have a lot to do with American Indian culture. I had to make a decision now that I found that I could turn an unwanted painting into a part of a romanticized culture that people could take home. I had to come to terms with whether I wanted to follow this path or not, and I decided that it was worth it. By adding feathers, beads, and bone necklaces, I could draw images of the people I wanted to draw, and it seemed like a small price to pay. Equipment improved the figures I made and became an integral part of my thinking about those figures, and not just a means of increasing venality. I've been making good money since 1979 and have sold millions of dollars worth of paintings.

2. MOST OF YOUR WORK IS A BLUR BETWEEN REALISM AND ABSTRACTION. WHY DO YOU MIX THE ELEMENTS AND HOW DID YOU DISCOVER YOUR DIFFERENT STYLE?

I went to college in the 1960s, and in the 1960s, if you were preparing for a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, you were expected to do abstract or non-objective work. The figurative work was perceived as antiquarian, it was not modern enough. Everything that needed to be said about the human figure had already been said and no longer mattered. I drew from life like everyone else, but didn't do any significant figurative work because I would be ridiculed in class and not get my degree. But immediately after graduation, I received a commission from the head librarian of Northern Arizona University to make six paintings for a new library under construction. I had just completed my Bachelor of Arts and didn't have to worry about pleasing the professor, so I decided to make figurative images loosely based on Coleridge's Kubla Khan poem.

That was the beginning, and I think I've always had a quirky nature. As the years passed, the figures took on a life of their own. Structurally, they have become anatomically impossible figures, which I call almost human. I recently had the opportunity to look at some of the things I did in college and shortly after graduation. I was stunned to see little circles, bubbles, whorls, whorls, and figures in them that were too tall and had too narrow or too wide shoulders. I had no idea these ideas were seeping into my artistic mind all those years ago. I didn't know that I was singing the same song all this time, just adding new words and new verses.

3. WHAT IS UNIQUE IN YOUR STUDIO SPACE OR CREATIVE PROCESS?

It is often said that the most important line in a drawing is the first line, because everything else is connected to it. I use a small stick of grapevine charcoal. The vine does not turn to ash, but turns into a stick of charcoal when burned, if there is not enough oxygen for complete combustion. I used other materials but started using this one in college. I use it to create the first line and to the end of the drawing. If someone came at night and stole my charcoal from the vine, I would not be able to paint another picture. This is the tool that I know best. When you use something for decades, it becomes an extension of yourself.

When things change, like when canvas makers change cotton suppliers, or when they stretch the canvas differently or use a new primer, it takes me weeks to adapt and sometimes I can't. Sometimes I have to sand it down or add more layers of plaster. For years I have used the same brush, number and style to sign my name on my paintings. It was an extension of my hand. When I started painting again after my retirement, I couldn't find those brushes anymore. I've been painting for two years now and it's still hard for me to write my name because the brush is no longer the same. It drives me crazy. I also sketch - using a dry brush that leaves a little e-color in the valleys of the weave. This is really scrubbing, and when you scrub with a brush, you lose the meaning. He wears out. The brushes I like the most are perfect for me. If I had to start with pointed bouncing brushes, I wouldn't be able to do what I do.

4. YOU SERVE BOTH RESIDENTIAL AND PUBLIC ART BUYERS. HOW DID IT AFFECT YOUR CAREER AND HOW DID YOU BREAK INTO PUBLIC ART?

The separation of public and private on my website is a design that I decided to use a few months ago, despite the fact that corporations and businesses have been buying my work for years. IBM bought six of my pieces in the mid to late 1970s. Many corporations and public places have purchased them. Buyers had to be very brave because my paintings are intense and confrontational. I learned in college that you shouldn't center your composition or use black. But I had to ignore those rules so I could do what was in my head - these confrontational creatures. In the 1970s, when my career took off, my main clientele was the wayward, very rich, and very opinionated real estate developers in the Southwest. They often bought my paintings and placed the strongest of them at their table to increase their power and intimidate anyone who was in front of the table. In the early 1980s, there was a savings and credit crisis, like the banking crises we just experienced. People played fast and carelessly by the rules. Suddenly, these multimillionaire developers were penniless and on the run from the Justice Department.

All of a sudden, my sales almost disappeared. But I knew the money hadn't gone anywhere: someone else had it. And I decided that now it should be in the hands of developers' lawyers. So I thought about what lawyers want in their offices. They will want something that looks towards a bright future and a large settlement. I did my best to satisfy my imaginary desire on the part of the lawyers and reversed my numbers. I drew them from the back. I could do it because all kinds of Indian ceremonies involve wonderful costumes. They were clearly waiting for something, and it was supposed to be a bright future. As soon as I did that, my paintings started selling again. After a few years and after enough people asked, I got my numbers back.

5. WHY DID YOU START PAINTING LANDSCAPES AND STILL LIFE AFTER THE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY PAINTED SHAMANS?

My paintings are very intense and almost all have confrontational eye contact. In many cases, people don't believe they are suitable for public spaces, so for the first time in 40 years, I'm doing landscapes again. I discovered parts of myself that I had to repress as I pursued a career. I have to convince people that it's okay to love Lawrence Lee, who is not a pronounced shamanistic quasi-American Indian. Since 1985 I have been an artist and member of the private Mountain Oyster Club. It was founded in 1948 by a group of wealthy young polo players who decided they needed to own their own place. They loved southwestern art, especially cowboy art. They started an annual art show to raise money, and it became so successful that it attracted some of the Southwest's finest artists and cowboys. If you didn't have a job on MO, you were nothing.

In the 1980s, most of the founding members left or passed away, and one guy was deciding who to take on the show. You had to get in this guy's line of sight so he could call you and come to your studio. At this point, he will make the final decision. They have an annual show which is still very good but mostly cowboy work. But my work has always been too big and too weird. I never understood why he decided to let me in. So this year I decided to do some very special things for the people who go to the MoD every year. It got me thinking about boots and spurs. I have to apply my artistic ability to this particular subject. In all these parts, I take a subset of the larger forms. I can focus on the bottom of the boot, the stirrup, or the spur part of the saddle because I think so. I usually try to incorporate some cognitive dissonance into my work, like a bubble or a butterfly, and I never know what's going to come up next. Going into this field was a business decision and was born out of the belief that, late in my career, I could paint good pictures that weren't shamanistic.

6. YOUR ART IS COLLECTED ALL OVER THE WORLD IN PLACES LIKE JAPAN, CHINA AND ALL OVER EUROPE. WHAT STEPS DID YOU TAKE TO SELL ART OUTSIDE THE US AND GET INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION?

By and large, I didn't have to take a single step outside of Tucson to do this, because this is a place for travelers from all over the world in its own right. Arizona has Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, and Old Pueblo. People come here from all over the world and want to take some magic home, so my art is perfect. I find out from galleries or friends of friends that a foreign collector has one of my works. Someone will say: “By the way, this gallery is sending one of your works to a person in Shanghai.” To a large extent, that is what happened. I had a solo show in Paris, but even that was because a fashion designer from Paris who was vacationing in Tucson contacted me because she wanted to show my work there.

7. YOU HAVE BEEN TO AN IMPRESSIVE NUMBER OF MAJOR EXHIBITIONS. HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR THESE EVENTS AND WHAT ADVICE DO YOU GIVE TO OTHER ARTISTS?

One thing that many artists don't understand is that people usually want to buy art that will live in their homes with them. In areas outside of New York, Los Angeles, Brussels, etc., if you are making a piece of high concept art that is a statement of human devolution represented by rubberized foam worms suspended from the ceiling above baby pools filled with artificially sweetened coffee. , you probably won't find someone to buy it for their home. You must understand that if you want to make a living doing this kind of stuff, you have to move to a city that accepts this kind of art. My advice: look at your art as if you were a potential buyer. If you do this, you will be able to understand a lot.

Years ago I was showing in San Francisco and couldn't sell anything. I was depressed until I thought about it and did a thorough research. I found that in most houses owned by people who could buy my work, the walls were too small for it. If I lived in San Francisco, I would know this almost instinctively. If I live in a three-story old Victorian house near Union Square, what kind of things would I like to put on my walls? In Tucson, most people want things with a Southwestern flair on their walls, unless they were born and raised in Boston and want to bring their sailboats. It is important to know the places where your potential buyers live. If you are a potential buyer, what would you like to know about the artist? If you have questions about an artist, your potential buyers will have the same questions about you. In other words, do your best to find out what your potential buyers want and try to give it to them.

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