British multimedia artist Debbie Lawson creates surreal animal sculptures cloaked in ornate Persian carpets. Her work explores the relationships between decoration and nature, craft and camouflage, blurring the line between the domestic and the wild. Her newest sculptures are currently being exhibited at Sargent’s Daughters in a solo show titled In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie.
The exhibition’s title comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The line, “In a cowslip’s bell I lie,” was sung by the spirit Ariel just before gaining freedom from Prospero. For Lawson, the line reflects the hidden animal and natural forms woven throughout decorative art and architecture, from Pompeii frescoes to Rococo interiors and the pattern designs of William Morris. While animals are often integrated within decorative designs, Lawson’s sculptures imagine them breaking free and roaming wild.
Lawson’s work also brings attention to the overlooked stories hidden within domestic crafts. These themes are personal to the artist, whose family has generations of ties to textile-making in Dundee, Scotland. She explains, “I’m also thinking about women, including some of my near ancestors, so often confined by the constraints of the patriarchal society in which they/we lived, trapped in the daily grind and unable to pursue their own considerable creative talents or fully inhabit the world.”
For the exhibition, Lawson sculpted bears, cougars, wild dogs, and monkeys using wire, masking tape, and Jesmonite resin before carefully covering them in patterned carpet. She adds the fabric so seamlessly that some creatures appear to emerge directly from rugs or furniture. Her brilliant animal sculptures represent figures long pushed into the background and invite viewers to reconnect with their wild instincts.
In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie is on view until May 30 at Sargent’s Daughters in New York. Check out some images from the show below.
British multimedia artist Debbie Lawson creates surreal animal sculptures cloaked in ornate Persian carpets.
Her newest sculptures are currently being exhibited at Sargent’s Daughters in a solo show titled In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie.
The artist’s work blurs the line between the domestic and the wild by depicting decorative animals roaming free.
Lawson’s work highlights the overlooked stories of women within domestic crafts, a theme rooted in her family’s generations of textile-making in Dundee, Scotland.
Her brilliant animal sculptures represent figures long pushed into the background and invite viewers to reconnect with their wild instincts.
