Dale Lawrence (b.1988) is an artist living and working in Cape Town. Through his work, Lawrence seeks moments of intimacy and invention through the disruption of repetitive processes: in craftsmanship and artistic practice, in familiar language and histories, in habitual behaviours and daily rituals.
Lawrence’s practice combines various media such as text, sculpture, print, performance and installation, frequently blurring lines between them. In creating new works by tearing up others that have gone unsold or recreating Kounellis’ Tragedia Civile (1975) from chip packets, or through his text works, in which the artist extracts phrases from ephemeral sources—including clickbait and news articles, news, advertising, social media, novels, song lyrics and speech transcripts—compiling them into poetic arrangements, Lawrence’s work displays a core focus on the interrelation between language, materiality and gesture.
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Lawrence’s practice combines various media such as text, sculpture, print, performance and installation, frequently blurring lines between them. In creating new works by tearing up others that have gone unsold or recreating Kounellis’ Tragedia Civile (1975) from chip packets, or through his text works, in which the artist extracts phrases from ephemeral sources—including clickbait and news articles, news, advertising, social media, novels, song lyrics and speech transcripts—compiling them into poetic arrangements, Lawrence’s work displays a core focus on the interrelation between language, materiality and gesture.
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