Veronica Lawlor Gallery

Paintings and drawings currently showing in COLLECTED LIGHT: An Exploration of Scotland, Ireland, and the Hudson Valley, NY

A three-person show at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck, NY.

Link HERE

This varied and exciting show exhibits the drawings, paintings, prints and assemblage work created by myself and my fellow artist-travelers Christie Scheele and Polly Law. The work is our response to the wild spaces of these three locations which we visited in the summer of 2024.

February 1 - June 22, 2025

Artist Talk on Sunday April 6, 2-4 pm.

Special Exhibition Raffle: One artwork from each artist to benefit the Catskill Center for Conservation. Drawing to be held on Sunday April 6.

Visit the gallery website for other special events!

A continuation of my series, Material Memory, of paintings made in response to a series of drawings done on site at abandoned brick factories of the Hudson Valley, NY region.

In 2024 I was awarded a year-long sabbatical from my professorship at Pratt Institute to continue this project. I visited and documented an abandoned silk mill near West Virginia and took at location drawing road trip through the ‘rust belt’ of the Northeast, drawing at abandoned steel mills, blast furnaces, and rubber and glass factories. This trip was partially funded by a grant from the New School faculty development fund. (See Location Drawings section to view.)

The Material Memory series work from the brick and silk factories was exhibited at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck, NY: Veronica Lawlor: Paintings and Drawings, July 6, 2024 - November 2024. The work is available for purchase in the galleries holdings: LINK

This series continues, as my interest in the cycles of the Anthropocene and the poetic reclamation of the abandoned industrial structures by the overgrowth of nature is ongoing.

Paintings made in response to a series of drawings done on site at abandoned brick factories of the Hudson Valley, NY region. The series references the brick making process, the machinery, and the poetic reclamation of the abandoned industrial structures by the overgrowth of nature. Some of this work was completed during a residency at the Woodstock-Byrdcliffe Guild during the summer of 2022.

Exhibited at Emerge Gallery, Saugerties, NY in my solo show, Material Memory, from July 15 - August 27, 2023.

Continuation of the abstract painting series using location drawings of the demolition of the 1930s Kosciuszko bridge, and the industrial relics around Newtown Creek in Queens, NY, as a point of departure.

Drawing and painting from the figure is the artistic structure upon which everything else rests.

The Covid19 lockdowns of NYC propelled me to bring more of my location work into the studio; as a point of departure for abstract painting. I discovered that the memories of these places come into sharper focus when revisited in quiet study.

The paintings shown here were inspired by my on-site location drawings of the demolition of the old Kosciuszko Bridge that connected Brooklyn and Queens, NY. The bridge faces the Calvary cemetery, where many of the men who worked on its construction in the 1930s are laid to rest.

I like to think of these images as a way to honor their craftsmanship and the progress that came from their labor, amidst the unending cycle of dissolution and rebuilding that happens in urban spaces.

Scroll to the end to see a few of the on-site location drawings that sparked this series.

A series of sailor’s knots and other drawings inspired by the restoration of the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship at Mystic Seaport.

Many of these drawings were shown in the 2012 exhibit: Restoring a Past, Charting a Future, an Artistic Discovery of America’s Whaling Legacy by Dalvero Academy, at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.

Exhibit Statement:

These drawings of knots are meant to bring attention to the smallest component of the whaling experience: the knots of rope that hold man to ship, ship to whale, restoration of the past to preservation of our future. Knots of rope can symbolize humanity’s relationship with the forces of nature.

In a very real sense, the restoration of the Charles W. Morgan is also a knot, the tying together of old and new wood, using the labor of today, to form a renewed ship. Restoring the Morgan, to me, represents our human desire to use the wisdom gained from our past as a rudder to guide us into a better future, one in which we can live in harmony with our environment.

These small works on paper explore many of the themes of my painting series of the destruction of the 1930s Kosciuszko truss bridge in NYC and the abandoned brick factories of the Hudson Valley region of NY.

The mixed media collage pieces capture the residual layers of energy and memory that reverberate through abandoned structures, even as nature reclaims them.

The watercolor pieces explore the idea of resiiency and the ruderal growth of plants that reclaim abandoned industrial spaces.

Many of the collage works are available through Emerge Gallery, NY in the Artsy Exclusive online exhibit HERE.