Natan Lawson

Untitled (Bubbles)

Natan Lawson’s Untitled (Bubbles) is ‘printed’ using a customized plotter, rigged to hold a paint marker with a ball-bearing tip, which is drained and refilled with a new color of acrylic paint, layered one atop another. While outward appearances suggest a painting (and the canvas substrate reinforces this) the implement resembles a ball-point pen used in drawing. So it is both painting and drawing. The results of the process are precise linear marks, that cross the entirety of the surface, appearing like a topographic map—an abstracted surface suggestive of something recognizable. The colors and texture of the work resemble hand-dyed fabric, akin to the low-resolution imagery of a woven rug. In this way, the form and content echo the hybrid process of production. The image in Untitled (Bubbles) is the result of the artist layering photo and found material in the computer, before sending coordinates to the plotter which renders it, with some manual intervention of the canvas during the process. Lawson thinks of the process as related to a computerized jacquard loom, where colored textile yarns are woven.