INDIANAPOLIS — William Burton Lawson won “Best of Show” at the Hoosier Salon. His oil painting entitled “Rolling Freight” will be on display at the Clowes Collaborative Exhibit at Hilbert Circle Theater through June 14th. The exhibit features 18 artist who have won Best of Show in the past years to celebrate the salon’s upcoming 100th Anniversary.
Will’s works reflect that his eyes are drawn to an extraordinary beauty that can be discovered in common city scenes and the nearby neighborhood of his studio home. He sees the unique dignity of houses and yards, alleys and sheds, storefronts and streets. His paintings reveal a wonderful balance of the constructed world of our communities contained and softened within the chaotic perfection of nature. Lawson’s work focuses on crisp angles of windows, the jutting straight lines of lamp posts, the disappearing point of a horizontal destination unknown among the world of light, sky and trees. The interesting lines of domestic buildings, clotheslines and fences are revealed, but also subtly contrasting planes of pure color, unimagined and overlooked, until he finds that perfect place and perspective where the composition completes the artist’s soul and places a weathered pink garage-side in shade upon a neighbor’s dwelling, sunlit and gray-blue, enlivening our eyes.
Lawson’s vision and dedication to his calling have resulting in a body of work created over the decades of his entire life that document a personal architectural history of Indianapolis. In past days, he lived near and painted Woodruff Place, Lockerbie, Mass Avenue and Fountain Square. He has a recurring fondness for views along and beneath the bridges of White River and other scenes downtown. Most recently, in Irvington, he has completed in excess of 80 commissioned paintings consisting of house portraits, gardens and interior scenes.
Lawson’s plein aire immersion in the Irvington community has resulted in a newfound notoriety among his neighbors as he is frequently recognized while standing and working at his easel along the sidewalks by collectors and admirers, or simply greeted with surprise and pleasure by passers-by or children who have never seen an artist at work. His single-minded passion for art is reflected in the utilitarian simplicity and sunny charm of his studio atop a historic drug store location in the heart of Irvington.
