LAWRENCE CALVER

TERRA FIRMA

STUDIO INTERVIEW WITH ALLAN GARDNER

ON VIEW 11.03.23 - O1.06.24

EXTENDED, BY APPT. UNTIL 01.13.24

CARVALHO PARK is thrilled to announce the opening of London-based artist, Lawrence Calver’s solo exhibition, Terra Firma, marking the first time Calver’s work is on view in New York. Terra Firma features seven expansive textile works spanning several years of practice, that embrace the dichotomous joy in both displacing oneself from common surroundings, as well as the return to them. In the realm of aviation, the phrase ‘terra firma’ refers to one’s return to solid ground, accompanied by the sensation of relief – the finding of safety, stability, or proximity to loved ones through the ending of flight. Calver’s recent practice has been bolstered by international residencies, from which most of these works originate, each environment, new and unfamiliar, singularly contributing to this body of work.

Practice is a broad thing, going far beyond the application of pigment to surface, stretching across the life of an artist and in a manner defined as much by activity outside of the studio as within it. Defining exactly when or where an artwork begins is complicated, muddy, fluctuating and unfixed until the work is completed – the artist designs his own histories, obscuring and highlighting material lives as he sees fit. 

Calver’s practice comes in two halves, one part solitary adventurer and another as a habitual painter haunting the studio, locked in astral conversation with the forebears of formalism, abstraction, and minimalism. The dichotomous traits sit at opposite ends of the renaissance-man spectrum, as much Kerouac as Kline, seeking inspiration in the lives, histories, and aesthetics of material, and equally so, in the people who source, curate, and trade them. Boat sails from Cape Town, kimonos from Tokyo, rolls of patterned fabrics woven decades ago in Hanoi and sat untouched under tarpaulin in the depths of less-tread markets – each repurposed and conjured into complex formal compositions in Calver’s work. 

Any artist working with materials even slightly outside of what might be found within a conventional art store tends to, if not now, then in the future, has a guy for that. For Calver, this has meant the careful building of relationships over a decade’s practice; the first time one approaches a fabric seller to purchase their entire stock of a pattern that has laid untouched in the racks for years arouses interest. Eventually, these sellers become interwoven with the evolutionary practice of the artist, aware of their supporting role in the production of something which exists entirely outside of their day-to-day and happily oblige. Such friendships alter the course of works, inserting the artist, in turn, as a participant within commercial and industrial trades that prior to this he only haunted, bringing new life to the material in its raw form. 

This is the duality of practice, an entire participatory world of merchants and producers working consciously or unconsciously in the back end of what is a process of collage built within the historic lineage and framework of painting. Calver begins with reams of material, laden both with their shared and individual histories, and breaks it down to a phenomenological level, looking at aesthetics of touch and texture, as much as color and shape. These works are indifferent to sharing their story – at times, genuinely hostile to the idea – for it is far more important to continue this chain of participation, to trigger memory or sensation in the viewer, and ideally, for Calver’s pursuit, one of warmth and comfort. 

Warmth and comfort, two words we rarely hear associated with concerns of form, abstraction, or minimalism, and yet are two of the most prescient in relation to Calver’s compositions. These works are opportunities to find solace within an increasingly terse world, their vast scale contributing to this by enveloping the viewer, emphasizing the physicality of the material, a desire to wrap oneself with the work and to exist within it. Step back and the compositional language takes center stage, formal considerations as a sort of visual choreography. Get close to the works and see the shifting tactile topographies as they've been cut, stretched, and recomposed in new ways alien to their genesis. The process of deconstruction and reconstruction is both a metaphorical and physical shedding of visual histories, priming the textiles for their new lives, almost like a monastic pledge. It is not necessarily about hiding, not a practice of obscuring or ignoring, but rather the embrace of the next chapter, a new stage, a new role. 

Yet these roles evade definition, even up to the disciplinary status of Calver as an artist, a solid categorization remains a challenge. In the historic lineage of painting? Undeniably. Beholden to the same path? More doubtful. Physically, the works are collages, formal and abstract, challenging the defined ideologies around abstraction and minimalism, whilst embracing certain aspects of their philosophies. Calver’s brush of choice is a sewing machine, with the artist assuming a choreographic role within the formal composition of pieces of fabric – the aim being to avoid altering the textile within traditional means for as long as possible. With these new works, Calver’s decision to push the compositions as far as possible has led to more encounters with the paintbrush, applying pigments in the form of dyes and watered-down acrylic paints to the surfaces as the final means of problem solving within the composition – the ultimate mark of a painter, nothing is off-limits in the service of the painting. 

Parachute paintings (Gliders) (2022) and Blue wave (2023) are two works that, despite having been made a year apart, share a particular kinship. Within the context of Terra Firma, they act as linchpins to illustrate the very specific sense of joy that is found both in leaving and returning to somewhere – this undefinable sensation which can remind us that desire is relative to circumstance. These particular works emphasize the resonance of Calver’s abstraction, a compositional literacy which is capable of reducing complex emotional or physical sensations to a haptic, visual level. 

This series acts as a first step into wilderness, an adventure in which the work’s aesthetic history is embraced and challenged further. Pieces like Blue sky (2023) see the pigment engulfing the fabric entirely, obscuring its texture and history in favor of a solid field of color, the final result in a long and torrid dialogue between the artist and material. These decisions encourage the viewer to think of the works as living beings, breathing and organic, struggling with themselves and their pasts in the same way that so many of us do under present circumstances. They act as mirrors, proof positive to change, to potential alteration, to new lives and untold possibilities. They push out the brutal, uncompromising, achingly masculine history of abstraction in favor of a more open, empathetic structure. 

Essay by Allan Gardner

Lawrence Calver (b. 1992, Suffolk, United Kingdom) lives and works in London. Calver studied creative direction of fashion at London College of Fashion and has completed residencies at Cape Town Art Residency, Cape Town (2022); Banditto Residency, Montefollonico (2022); Simchowitz, Los Angeles (2021); PADA, Lisbon (2019); and The Muse Gallery, London, (2017). Recent solo exhibitions include Terra Firma at CARVALHO PARK, New York, (2023); Infinity Gentle at Cape Town Art Residency, Cape Town (2023); Sink or Swim at Simchowitz, Los Angeles (2022); Lawrence Calver at Rod Barton, London (2022); Assiduity at De Brock Gallery, Knokke (2022); Under the Sun at Cob Gallery, London (2022); On the Off Chance at Simchowitz, Los Angeles (2021).