bio
Laura J. Lawson is an interdisciplinary artist who connects the humanities to interstellar exploration. She is a graduate of Austin College (BA) and The University of Memphis (MFA). She was awarded a residency at the Centre d’Art Marnay Art Center in Marnay-sur-Seine, France, and was selected for the first cohort of studio artists at the Cedars Union art incubator in Dallas. Next year she is joining The Arctic Circle residency in Svalbard to prepare for a future exhibition about Europa. Her work has been shown in Vignette Art Fair, New Texas Talent XXVII, the Amarillo Museum of Art Biennial, and in international juried exhibitions. Her TEDx talk at Austin College stressed the importance of better standards for time and space to do creative work. Lawson also worked with the Lunar and Planetary Institute to foster interdisciplinary collaboration at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference through a series of art and science workshops.
statement
I believe that the places we can never visit—whether it’s the separation of space or of time—have important cultural significance. My work as an artist is to act as a conduit between the data of space science and our collective imagination. The human impulse for storytelling is just as valid when applied to distant planets and future possibilities as it is for our ancient oral traditions. I emphasize and celebrate how our places and planets are named for myths, legends, animals, heroes, and artists.
Through visual art and writing, my practice takes planetary research and injects it with curiosity, wonder, and play. Though trained as a painter, I let the subject dictate my materials. After learning about the processes for discovering exoplanets, I reimagined our solar system’s worlds as cube sculptures, reducing familiar planets to pixels. I have collected paper maps of cities and cut and layered them to share simultaneous timelines of human development within landscapes. When the physics of orbital resonance resonated with me, I painted the extraordinary quirks of Jupiter’s moons as part of a rhythmic symphony of 95 paintings. I dive deeply into individual elements and minerals, too: I have contrasted the iron of Mars to the blood of our species, and imagined how Earth’s land artists might make marks with Mercury’s graphite-rich craters. All of these ideas have manifested in my work as lighted acrylic sculptures, handmade regolith paints, delicately cut paper, intricate drawings, airy installations, and poetic essays. As my interests grow in planetary science, celestial mechanics, and the behavior of time, my practice will expand to use whatever media is necessary to express all that is strange and magnificent in the universe.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
2016 MFA, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
2010 BA, Austin College, Sherman, TX
2009 L’Institut Catholique de Paris, Paris, France
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Jovian Resonance at Ro2 Art, Dallas, TX
2022 Venus and Mars: Climates in Dialogue, The MAC, Dallas, TX
Lands Beyond Earth, Gallery 2960 at The Epic, Grand Prairie, TX
2021 Solar Siblings, Dallas Public Library (Oak Lawn), Dallas, TX
2017 Elements of Place, Dennis Gallery, Austin College, Sherman, TX
2016 Dépaysement, The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art, Memphis, TN
2015 Navigator, Box Gallery, Memphis, TN
2014 Specimen, Eclectic Eye, Memphis, TN
2010 Somatic Erratic, Daniel Ross Gallery, Austin College, Sherman, TX
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 i, object, Forum Gallery, Farmers Branch, TX
Spaces between Clarity, North Lake Gallery, Irving, TX
2024 Small Works Show, 400H Gallery, Fort Worth, TX
Transmissions, Canopy Austin, Austin, TX
Helios, Dallas College Cedar Valley Gallery, Lancaster, TX
Eclipse, Ro2 Art, Dallas, TX
Five by Seven, Booker T. Washington Visual Arts Fundraiser, 2508 Sylvan, Dallas, TX
2023 Burning Woman, Oak Cliff Cultural Center, Dallas, TX
CHAOS 9, Ro2 Art, Dallas, TX
Presence, The MAC, Dallas, TX
Mark Making, Pencil on Paper Gallery, Dallas, TX
Faculty and Student Exhibition, Cedar Valley Gallery, Lancaster, TX
Change of Weather, Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery, Valdosta, GA
7 from 707, 2508 Sylvan, Dallas, TX
2022 Fooling Ourselves, The MAC, Dallas, TX
CHAOS8!, Ro2 Art, Dallas, TX
Refuge, The MAC, Dallas, TX
To Infinity and Beyond!, Friend of a Friend Gallery, Denver, CO
Даллас, curated by Dr. Margarita Kuleva, Carillon Gallery, Fort Worth, TX
2021 Act Like You Like Each Other, Umbrella Gallery, Dallas, TX
The Other Art Fair, Dallas Market Hall, Dallas, TX
AMoA Biennial 600: Justice-Equality-Race-Identity, Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX
Whereabouts, Gallery S14, The Cedars Union, Dallas, TX
Together, The MAC, Dallas, TX
2020 Online Faculty Exhibition, Tarrant County College Southeast, Arlington, TX
Lone Star Art Show, Texas Discovery Gardens Gallery, Dallas, TX
New Texas Talent XXVII, Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Art Faculty Exhibition, Tarrant County College Southeast, Arlington, TX
2019 HYPERLOCAL, The MAC, Dallas, TX
First Come First Serve, Fort Works Art, Fort Worth, TX
Power, CICA Museum, Gimpo, Korea
Assembly, 22nd Annual Members Show, The MAC, Dallas, TX
KAABOO Texas Music Festival and Art Fair, Arlington, TX
Vignette Art Fair, juried by Leslie Moody Castro, The Women’s Museum, Fair Park, Dallas, TX
COLOR, juried by Jennifer Klos, Maddrey PLLC, Dallas, TX
2018 Art and Digital Design Faculty Exhibition, Cedar Valley College Educational Gallery, Lancaster, TX
Discovery/Invention, Gilliam Collegiate High School, Dallas, TX
Blue, The Gallery 8680, Frisco, TX
Hot & Sweaty, 500X, Dallas, TX
Florescence, Blue House Too, Allen, TX
First Come First Serve, Fort Works Art, Fort Worth, TX
2017 Paper Works, Fort Works Art, Fort Worth, TX
Ghost Town Arts Collective 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Sherman, TX
34th Annual Juried Student Exhibition, juried by Umar Rashid, AMUM, Memphis, TN
2016 Epoché, Box Gallery, Memphis, TN
VISIONAIRRE / ASSEMBLÉ, CAMAC, Marnay-sur-Seine, France
Planet Nine: Displacement, curated by Eric Clausen, Marshall Arts, Memphis, TN
In Form, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN
The 33rd Annual Juried Student Exhibition, juried by Michael Aurbach, The Fogelman Galleries of
Contemporary Art, Memphis, TN
2015 We Tried, Earnestine & Hazel’s, Memphis, TN
Plaster Down the Sink, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN
2014 Best of Memphis Juried Exhibition, juried by Tad Lauritzen Wright, Box Gallery, Memphis, TN
2013 4th Annual People’s Choice Exhibit, Allen Depot Museum, Allen, TX
Hocus Pocus, The Flatiron, Chicago, IL
2012 New Chicago Artists, Per Populus, Chicago, IL
2011 Cheap, Fun, Sexy, Ghost Town Arts, Sherman, TX
2010 Small on the Wall, Artplace Gallery, Denison, TX
Lucky Number Eleven, Ghost Town Arts, Sherman, TX
Untitled by Anonymous, Johnson Gallery, Sherman, TX
Residencies and Juried Programs
2026 The Arctic Circle, International Territory of Svalbard
2018 The Cedars Union studio artist, Dallas, TX
2016 Centre d’Art Marnay Art Center (CAMAC) artist in residence, Marnay-sur-Seine, France
Publications, Workshops and Artist Talks
2025 TED x Austin College speaker, coming in October
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2025, Art + Science workshop
2024 CU Lecture: Best Practices with Laura J. Lawson, The Cedars Union
Solar Eclipse viewing event and workshop, The Cedars Union
Eclipse Talk: Safe Viewing Strategies, Ro2 Art Gallery
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2024, Art + Science workshop
2023 Artist talk for Jovian Resonance, Ro2 Art Gallery
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2023, Art + Science workshop
2022 Mozaik E-Zine No 2: Ecosystem X, July 22
Don’t Drink the Paint Water Podcast, Episode 12
2021 TED x Austin College speaker, Time and Space: Arts’ Most Valuable Resources
Bruce Murray Space Image Library, The Planetary Society
2019 Cedars Open Studios presents Cedars Sessions, artist talk with Riley Holloway and Kristina Smith
The Cedars Union, Finding Your Comfort Zone as an Artist panel discussion
2017 Austin College, A Night of Fine Art and Fine Wine artist talk
Austin College, panel discussion with Classical and Modern Languages alumni
Average Art Magazine, July issue
Honors and Awards
2021 The Other Art Fair Dallas New Futures Award
2017 President’s Purchase Award, 34th Annual Juried Student Exhibition
2016 Merit Award, 33rd Annual Juried Student Exhibition
2015 The Maude and Thomas Littlejohn Memorial Scholarship
2014 Committee’s Choice Award, Best of Memphis 2nd Annual Juried Exhibition
Grants
2022 Ecosystem X Special Mention Artist, MOZAIK Philanthropy
Collections
Dallas College
The University of Memphis Office of the President
The Art Museum of the University of Memphis
Press
Scientific American, How Jeff Koons’s Lunar Artwork Could Outlast All of Humanity, April 2024
Glasstire, Five Minute Tours: Laura J. Lawson at Ro2 Art Gallery, Dallas, September 2023
Canvas Blog, New Futures Class of 2021, Dallas, October 2021
Glasstire, Demons and Barbeque: July 2021 Shows in North Texas, Dallas, July 2021
Glasstire, Plan C: The Cedars Union Art Auction, Dallas, November 2020
Glasstire, Five-Minute Tours: Three Current Exhibitions at Craighead Green, Dallas, June 2020
Voyage Dallas, Art & Life with Laura J. Lawson, Dallas, TX, July 2018
l'Est Clair, Des artistes cosmopolites au Camac de Marnay-sur-Seine, Aube, France, January 2016
Professional Experience
2024 Full-time faculty, Dallas College
2021 The Shrinking Ballot, performance by Erica Felicella; ballot box installation crew
2019 Adjunct faculty, Austin College (through Spring 2022)
Adjunct faculty, Tarrant County College
2018 Adjunct faculty, Dallas College
2017 Visiting artist and workshop instructor, Austin College
Workshop instructor, Blue House Too, Visual Arts League of Allen, TX
2016 Chair, Box Gallery, The University of Memphis
Art Editor, The Pinch Literary Journal
Exhibition Support, The Art Museum of the University of Memphis
Instructor, Drawing II, The University of Memphis
2015 Mural Painter for A Genealogy of Kindness, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, The University of Memphis