- Deborah Lawrence, Beachtopia, Acrylic, collage, and varnish on rag paper, 37×31 inches, 2005.
Deborah Lawrence’s beguiling collage-paintings mix magic and politics, whimsy and anger, a sense of indignation as well as the absurd. In her hands, these intricate dreamscapes, recycled from discarded piles of pop imagery and the art canon, transform into powerful critiques of authority, oppression and social injustice. New worlds are created out of old ones. They are also celebrations of important progressive leaders and milestones in the history of protest. What makes propaganda so dangerous is its emphatic righteousness. And while Dee Dee is clearly a feisty propagandist of the first order, her humor and irony make her lovable and inspire us to share the role of creative change-maker
Dee Dee Does Utopia was on display November 11, 2005 – January 31, 2005.
Lawrence earned an MFA in painting from Claremont Graduate School in 1982. Since 1989, she has worked as an arts educator in diverse institutions including the Washington State Arts Commission, the Seattle Asian Art Museum, University of Washington School of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her paintings and collages have been exhibited in Seattle, Spokane, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Sendai and Prague. She has won numerous awards that include the Washington State Arts Fellowship; the WESTAF/NEA grant for Works on Paper; and the Creative Capital Grant in 2005.
BOOKS
The Faber Book of Utopias
John Carey
Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler
Paradise
Toni Morrison
Sultana’s Dream: A Feminist Utopia
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
The Block
Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
WEBSITES
Society for Utopian Studies
Founded in 1975, The Society for Utopian Studies is an international, interdisciplinary association devoted to the study of Utopianism in all its
forms, with a particular emphasis on literary and experimental utopias.
Utopian Studies Society
The Utopian Studies Society is an interdisciplinary society that aims to co-ordinate and encourage the diverse work currently taking place on the subject of Utopianism.
Exploring Dystopia
Dystopia defined in culture and films.