Magic Carpet - Debbie Lawson

Red Gull - Debbie Lawson

Exciting and intriguing exhibition of new work by Debbie Lawson, winner of the 2013 J D Fergusson Arts Award. 
The show, titled 'Magic Carpet' presents a series of new sculptures partly inspired by the Arabian Nights stories. Many of the works on display use the unusual medium of patterned carpet to cover the sculptural forms.
The Exhibition starts on Saturday November 23 at the Fergusson Gallery.

Debbie Lawson: 'I think of my work as a series of episodes that take you on a journey through the landscape of the domestic interior, where popular narratives and personal histories are intertwined so that the imaginary and material reality seem inseparable. Visual codes collide, giving form to new animated hybrids with a quietly sinister inner life and aspirations to be bigger than themselves. At the heart of the work is a focus on the cultural traditions surrounding everyday objects – specifically those found in the aspirational home. And although it may look elaborate, the impetus behind the work comes from a stripped-down idea of sculpture: the patterned carpet I use as an outer surface emphasises the innate qualities of form while at the same time disrupting them so that it appears to alternate between three dimensions and two, creating a visual slippage. My interest in seeing the monumental through the prism of the small-scale or domestic comes from a preoccupation with a specific form of narrative, where the central protagonist, a seemingly naive and unassuming character, embarks on a series of episodic adventures, seeing through the apparently innocuous to expose hidden, and often darker, or stranger, meanings. For Magic Carpet, I have created a new series of sculptures partly inspired by the Arabian Nights – a classic of literature whose interwoven stories have a textural, multi-layered quality that feels appropriate to my choice of material.'