With 40 years under his belt in the Western art world, T. Allen Lawson will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the Brinton Museum titled Recollections and Reflections. “I am still completely amazed by the whole creative process,” Lawson says.
“I consider myself a student after all these years, and I’m energized and frustrated by how much there is to learn still.”
Bernadette, 2014, oil, 30 x 21”. Private collection.
Part retrospective and part new work, the show will feature paintings that depict scenes from his native Wyoming, his adopted home in Maine and many places in between.
In the 2020 painting The Yard — Feeding Time, viewers see a white barn from a distance, with sheep and farm equipment dotting the landscape. “My work would be called representational in that you can recognize what you’re looking at, but when I’m working on paintings, I think of the subject matter in abstract terms,” Lawson says.
The Cool Out, 2016, oil, 24 x 22”. Private collection.
The painting was based on a ranch in Iowa, and the white of the sunlit barn contrasted against the not-so-white coats of the sheep created a special challenge. “The whole painting stems around the nuances of peeling paints and cut boards that pick up a slightly different angle,” he explains. “From an abstract standpoint, it’s a multitude of subtle, varied whites, which I find intriguing.” 
The Yard – Feeding Time, 2020, oil, 30 x 32”. Private collection.
Ice Capades, 2019, oil, 25 x 20”. Private collection.On a 2016 trip to the Keeneland Race Track, Lawson completed The Cool Out, which features a trainer walking a thoroughbred to cool off after a workout on the track. “The barns there are beautifully designed, and there’s activity going around like a beehive,” he says. “In this painting, the shadows were cast from the barn itself. The trainer and the horse were in the shadow and that created some nice abstract shapes and patterns.”
T. Allen Lawson: Recollections and Reflections opens May 15 at the Brinton and remains on view through September 6. —
T. Allen Lawson: Recollections and Reflections
May 15-September 6, 2021
The Brinton Museum
239 Brinton Road, Big Horn, WY 82833
(307) 672-3173, www.thebrintonmuseum.org
Powered by Froala Editor
