Carol Dawson celebrates the natural world around her, painting large, colorful watercolors of flowers and birds that stimulate the viewers’ interest and curiosity. The birds in her paintings look directly at the observer. “I want the viewer to feel the presence of another living organic creature or plant,” she says, “to become more aware. I’m promoting a sense of deep connection.”
Marie Antoinette, watercolor on paper, 30¾ x 45"
In recent paintings she initially set herself the challenge of limiting herself to one pigment “while maintaining the dynamism of movement in what would be ordinarily a group of flowers. I’ve been aiming at abstraction.”
Monochroma: Exploration, featuring her new paintings, will be shown at Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas, October 8 to 30.
Dawson introduces a touch of green in her painting White, adding mystery to the fecundity of the chrysanthemum blossoms, which the casual observer might experience as pure white.
Green Eyes, watercolor on paper, 22 x 30"
In Marie Antoinette, she celebrates the lush pink peonies that grew in the private gardens of the last queen of France at Versailles. Dawson shows the life cycle of the flower from its tight round bud to its complex, ruffled blossoms, to its dying petals falling to the ground. The queen, known for her haughty frivolity, enjoyed her quiet time among the plants in her secret garden.
White, watercolor on paper, 22 x 30"
“Nature is so necessary to us all,” Dawson says. “I’m not interested in cerebral painting. I’m interested in promoting a deep connection for people so they can pursue nature in a new way—so they can value it more and enjoy the surprise of that connection.”
Deep Pink, watercolor on paper, 30 x 22"
Her own life is enriched by her pursuit of two passions—painting and writing both fiction and non-fiction.
The American poet and suffragist Alice Duer Miller (1874-1942) wrote, “I was not out to paint beautiful pictures; even painting good pictures was not important to me. I wanted only to help the truth burst forth.”
Dawson allows the truth to burst forth both in beauty and in an alluring invitation to reunite with it in nature. —
Wally Workman Gallery
1202 W. 6th Street • Austin, TX 78703 • (512) 472-7428
www.wallyworkmangallery.com
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