ARTIST: Lawrence Waldron
Education
CUNY Graduate Center Doctoral studies in Pre-Columbian Art History8/2001 to (present)School of Visual Arts Illustration as Visual Essay: Master of Fine Art
9/96 to 5/98
St. John's University Fine Art: Bachelor of Fine Art (Cum Laude)
9/86 to 12/88 and 9/91 to 12/93
Saint Mary's College (Trinidad, WI) Liberal Arts, (CXC and GCE): High School Diploma
9/80 to 5/85
Statement
The majority of this artwork is linked directly to Buddhist practice. Buddhism's rich artistic history is a perpetual font of ideas and inspiration for me. With each ethical puzzle solved, each psychological breakthrough made, each new truth uncovered using the Buddha's teachings, I complete yet another experiment and my mind comes to rest on some visual analogy for my recent experience. From analogous materials, I attempt to express these subtle metaphors in some physical way. The choice to work with the lotus as the prime ground in my art stems from my appreciation of that plant, that flower, as a supreme Buddhist symbol. Rooting in the murky, muddy bottoms of lakes and ponds, the lotus grows upwards towards the light, through increasingly clarified levels of water to blossom far above the water, a pristine and peerless flower. What a wonderful analogy for the ascent of the human consciousness: the mind, rising through increasingly rarified levels of spiritual achievement towards the ultimate goal. For Buddhists the goal is to blossom into the pure, transcendent selflessness of nirvana, connected to, but transcendent of the occluded, mundane world.
For me, any artistic use of the lotus plant would necessarily access this profound symbolism. My aim therefore, is to employ the physical and symbolic presence of the lotus plant while giving expression to specific Buddhist ideas as the focus of each art piece.
The water resistant surface of the lotus leaf is modified by the pointed heat of lit incense, the cutting edge of a small blade, is embellished with gouache in rose water or by whatever other means I can devise. The utmost effort is made to never subsume or countermand the innate symbolism of the lotus. This deep respect for the medium and the resultant self-imposed restrictions on how to use it are the source of my innovations with respect to making art from the lotus.
