Jim Lawrence
Cirrus Gallery
Perhaps with an axe, Jim Lawrence hacks fir-wood figures, and paints them with an ugly brush. Then, according to precise inner bearings, he groups them about the past, carving from its airs an atmosphere charged with social relevance. Recent series have been inspired by the medieval European plagues, Richard Wagner, and August Sander’s pre-World War II photographs of typical Germans. Lawrence’s most recent work, “The Dutch/Japanese Series,” includes 30 wooden figures, two painted backdrops, and a boat; its premise is a 17th-century encounter between the two cultures. Such an encounter, of course,