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The Lazarus Corporation Art & Writing by Paul Watson
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Paul Watson

A photo of Paul Watson

I was born in the industrial Midlands of England and have lived in various parts of the country, most recently settling in Brighton & Hove, UK.

After getting my degree in art from Dartington College of Arts in 1992 I started developing a body of artwork based around assemblage and collage, mixing paint with found objects, whilst simultaneously taking an intensely active interest in the nascent web.

In 1996 I launched the Lazarus Corporation both as a website and as a publishing house for my artwork. Over the years it has been coaxed through numerous evolutionary cycles.

My artwork has sold to collectors across the world, mainly facilitated directly through online sales rather than through galleries or agents.

I currently use drawing as my primary medium in my artistic practice, supplemented with some photography.

I maintain a regular practice in life-drawing, as well as producing work in series, notably England’s Dark Dreaming from 2016-2018 (a series of large scale charcoal drawings, now collected into a book of the same name) and currently Acid Renaissance: Albion’s True Standard Advanced , which is a series in a mixture of media including drawing and photography.

Artist’s Statement

My artwork uses folkloric and mythic imagery to explore contemporary turbulent social and political themes and to provide hints to imagining progressive alternative futures by stepping outside the “real”.

I have published two books of my artwork — Myth & Masks and England’s Dark Dreaming — both of which can be ordered from my online shop (along with prints and postcards of my artwork), and I’m planning a third book in 2024.

I am currently working on a large series of artwork called Acid Renaissance: Albion’s True Standard Advanced which uses strange and magical images of a mythic future of England to prompt ideas in the viewer about radically-different potential futures for my country.

I use several media in my artistic practice, but recently I have been mainly concentrating on drawing and photography.

I see drawing as a primary medium, not just as a preparatory tool or a training exercise, but the finished artwork. I always draw from life, which prevents the figures becoming too similar or stylised.

I draw in various media, including graphite pencil, sanguine pencil, charcoal, and pastels, depending on the subject matter and the themes I want to explore.

I make all the masks used in my photographic work myself, and for me this is also part of my artistic practice. I am very interested in the transformative properties of masks, and the way in which they affect the wearer as well as the viewer.

I like to use a single off-camera flash to produce chiaroscuro lighting, leaving large areas in shadow. The photographs are taken with a digital SLR but, apart from some minor tweaking of tonal levels and saturation, everything in the image exists in front of the camera lens rather than being digitally added later.

On my website, in addition to my portfolio and online shop, I have a blog - The Artist’s Notebook - that I’ve been posting in since 2008, where I write about my creative process and artistic practice, which also gives a lot more insight into the thoughts and aims behind my artwork.

Social Media

Find Paul on:

Publications

Own Books and Zines

Articles, interviews, and contributions to other publications

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

Group Exhibitions