Erin Lawlor

Erin Lawlor is widely celebrated for her masterful command of the 'alla-prima' technique. Working with a signature, broom-like brush, she possesses the rare ability to condense the immediacy of a single moment into lines, shapes, and color with one fluid, sweeping motion.Lawlor’s engagement with the canvas is intensely visceral. For her, a painting is not merely a finished object, but a living record of its own creation - a physical archive where the choreography of the hand is translated into the raw dynamics of oil on canvas.

In her expansion into printmaking, Lawlor brings this same kinetic energy to the medium of etching. The sequence of gestures that builds toward a single stroke infuses a powerful sense of volume into the otherwise flat surface of handmade paper. Suspended at a fragile equilibrium between absolute control and deliberate accident, her prints capture a moment frozen in time, yet they retain a restless energy that feels as though it could unlock and move again at any second.

Once passed through the heavy etching press, the paper physically molds itself to the deep grooves and indentations of the etched plate. The stark contrast between light and shadow transforms the negative space into a sculptural dialogue between solid presence and empty air. The result is a fundamentally open visual language - one that strives to signify an experience rather than merely illustrate it.

Rather than defining her work as abstract, Lawlor prefers the term non-figurative. Her practice aligns closely with the philosophy of the American physicist David Bohm, who viewed reality not as a static, permanent state, but as a holistic, ever-unfolding process of movement. In Lawlor's hands, the canvas becomes just that: a space of continuous becoming.