A new body of work from painter T. Allen Lawson shifts the artist’s focus from the land to the rancher’s constant companions.
 
Admirers of artist T. Allen Lawson will want to make their way quickly to Cody, Wyoming, where a solo exhibition for this respected painter is on view at Simpson Gallagher Gallery“T. Allen Lawson: Neighbors” officially opens this evening with a reception from 5-8 p.m.


T. Allen Lawson, “Backlit Sheep,” oil on linen, 20 x 18 in. Simpson Gallagher Gallery


T. Allen Lawson, “Christmas Dinner,” oil on linen, 30 x 30 in. Simpson Gallagher Gallery
 
Lawson’s paintings bring our attention to the non-human “Neighbors” that fill rural life with color and energy. “These paintings are portraits of the often unnoticed or forgotten neighbors that are around us every day — the chickens, horses, deer, cows, crows, and magpies that share our yards, woods, skies, and lives,” says the artist. For Lawson, who has earned wide acclaim for his landscape painting, the animal paintings mark a bold new direction. In some passages the artist’s precision impresses, and elsewhere his painterly touch comes to the fore, but a consistent sense of narrative throughout his paintings lends them an aura of significance.


T. Allen Lawson, “Priorities,” oil on linen, 26 x 38 in. Simpson Gallagher Gallery

“Neighbors” presents 24 recent works by Lawson, mostly oil paintings and a small selection of mixed media drawings. Speaking to the strength of the artworks and artist, much of the exhibition has already sold ahead of the show’s opening. At the time of writing, 13 of 24 artworks had found homes with collectors.
 

T. Allen Lawson, “Calling More Crows,” oil on linen, 34 x 24 in. Simpson Gallagher Gallery


T. Allen Lawson, “The Villain’s Lair,” graphite and pastel on handmade paper, 22 x 30 in. Simpson Gallagher Gallery

Now based in Rockport, Maine, Lawson studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Connecticut. His artworks feature in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Portland Museum of Art, Whitney Western Art Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Florence Griswold Museum, Farnsworth Art Museum, and the White House.
 
To see more from “Neighbors,” visit Simpson Gallagher Gallery online.


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