Stephen Lawson: Images of Time

Stephen Lawson, Circle of the Seasons, 2009, photocollage, 30” x 34.” Collection of the Artist.

Vero Beach Museum of Art

By Denise Colson

This exhibition gathers 19 collages of Stephen Lawson’s unusual photography that deal with space and time. The origin of these works date to when Lawson traveled to West Virginia in the 1970s to get involved in environmental sculpture. His concerns about conservation led him to develop a non-intrusive and participatory way of working with the landscape. This led him to work in a manner that required photo documentation, and the camera became his “main tool.” The unique cameras required to create these time-based works have been constructed by him and have evolved over the years.

Even though Lawson presents his audience with two-dimensional representations of experience, he gives viewers so much information about physical changes in light, weather and point of view, as well as the passage of time, that they can reconstruct the physical reality behind his photographs. This collection signifies a call to attention about the future of our planet. As the author says, “The work is presented in a poetic mode that asks one to stand briefly outside the usual flow of time, hopefully causing us to reflect on our in the world,’ individually, culturally and even as a species.” Through May 11, 2014.