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REVIEWS
The Lace Show, group show, Los Angeles,
The Reader, Feb. 1985, Colin Gardner:
"Dianne Lawrence and Janet Jenkins both known for
gestural figures depicted in bright fauve colors, and
Jim Shaw, known for his use of black and white patchwork
quilt skin textures and eyes, all present strong, representative
examples of their work."
Piezo Electric, group show, New York,
Arts magazine, March 1985, Colin Gardner:
"Both Geoffrey Hales and Dianne Lawrence create works
of psychological resonance yet subjugate inherent drama
to a veneer of playful, "faux-naif" distancing"
Attack Gallery, one person show, Los Angeles
LA Weekly, Peter Clothier, June 1985
"The strongest of her paintings, such as Mars and
Venus, draw on myth as well as intimate personal imagery.
Gutsy juxtapositions of color and heavily textured surfaces
of paint explore correspondences between outer darkness
and internal light, the sensual and spiritual realms."
Performance piece, "Fertile Eyes" Malibu
Hills,
High Performance, Issue # 35, Linda Burnham, 1986
"For ‘Fertile Eyes’ Dianne Lawrence cannily
set her stage with the Malibu Hills, the Pacific Ocean
and the full moon. A small audience limited to 50 had
to go to some lengths to get there…hours of driving
and hiking were involved and we had to pack in our dinner.
Once situated on a rocky perch above a canyon verdant
with sagebrush and manzanita I was glad I hadn’t
let another summer solstice go by
without getting outdoors to enjoy it.
The show began almost imperceptibly somewhere between
the wine and the cheese and the warm offshore breeze but
was definitely underway with the use of a full red moon
over a distant hill.
When performers finally appeared at least an hour after
our arrival on the spot, they struggled up the bluff in
front of us to sing, dance and read poetry on a small
dirt "stage" with the ocean for a backdrop.
Lawrence used only the most rudimentary of technologies
during this program of episodes about men and women, their
loves and battles. Lighting was by the moon and hand-held
flashlights, sound was by ghetto-blaster.
Lawrence is a painter who has relied heavily on mythical
and dream imagery for spiritual insights into human love.
Her everyday conversation is sprinkled with references
to psychology, philosophy and occult knowledge. On stage
she has a powerful charisma, an effortless delivery and
a rafter shaking deep singing voice. Her training in acting
stand her in good stead but it is her concentration on
the inner meaning of desire and heartbreak that makes
her written work so strong. She finds answers to our prayers
for peace and understanding in a union between male and
female, in a blending of our unique strengths as two halves
of a whole.
For this piece she drew on folk music, blues, Greek drama,
TV sitcom and poetry…humorous, sexy and profound.
Of particular note was a moment following a mask dance
depicting a terrible struggle between male and female
figures when Lawrence rose from the bluff in the dark
holding above her head a formed painting of a goddess
figure. Wavering colored lights made the figure seem to
shudder and gleam against the blue black sky and her entrance,
as if between the portals of male and female understanding
brought gasps and tears from some of the people around
me.
Lawrence’s demand for male-female unity whether
sobbed in a blues song, joked about in a shadow play between
Mars and Venus, vamped in flirtatious poems or elevated
to myth in ancient mask-dancing were touching and effectively
presented. The vaudeville poetry reading format was not
formally challenging but she had the genius to employ
Mother Earth and Sister Moon as scene masters."
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©2004 Dianne
V. Lawrence |
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