In Travis Lawrence’s latest works, an open eye floats in a cloud under a dark, starry sky. Raindrops that hold a crescent-shaped moon fall from the cloud. In another woodcut, yellow suns rest in the green leaves of a tree. The images are rich with intricate details etched into slabs of birchwood.
“My work has always been symbol-rich,” says Lawrence, a local printmaker. He’s been interested in symbols ever since he discovered Carl Jung’s work in his twenties and was drawn to the way Jung incorporated symbolism into his philosophy. “Alchemy, for a similar reason, is a symbolic process of self-discovery,” he says.
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For this reason, Lawrence doesn’t spend too much time planning his designs–they just sort of evolve. “It’s almost like a puzzle where you have an image that represents something and in order for you to understand it, you have to put it in different situations,” he says.
The images sometimes come to Lawrence in “a flash,” so he carries a sketchpad to capture them before they’re gone. “It’s like a dream where you can lose it so quick.”
It was while Lawrence was in college studying philosophy and religious studies that he took a printmaking course for a creative outlet. He didn’t know what to expect when he signed up, but he was quickly fascinated by what could be created with just lines. “I had been drawing my entire life, but this was drawing times 10,” he says. “It just sucked me in.”
He’s been creating woodcuts for over a decade now and says that his craft has changed over the years. “You learn these tools the more you use them, so the cuts are a lot looser in my early stuff,” says Lawrence. “I can do more refined detail now.”
In one of his designs, a snake’s body has details so intricate, they’d be hard to draw, much less carve into wood. “It’s a very physical process,” he says. “The way the wood chips and cuts adds that life to a piece, but it’s strenuous.”
Lawrence’s content has always focused on spiritual ideas, but he’s been able to explore that in different avenues over the years. “Even when you study a lot of classic alchemical texts, it’s still very cryptic and metaphorical,” he says. “It’s intended that way, so the viewer has to discover it on their own.”
In his latest work, Lawrence has created a series of 36 hand-painted block prints that he calls “Pillars.” The series will be on display along with some larger pieces at his solo exhibit, “Synthemata,” at Hoffman LaChance Gallery in Maplewood from May 8–30. The opening reception will be from 6–10 p.m. on May 8.
