Exploring the Visionary Lens of Deana Lawson: Artistry, Insights, and Inspiration

Early life and education

Lawson was raised with her twin sister, Dana Lawson, in Rochester, New York, which is home to Kodak, the renowned producer of film and photographic products. She has frequently claimed that her journey in photography was fated since her mother, Gladys Lawson, spent over 35 years at Kodak working as an administrative assistant, and her father, Cornelius Lawson, served as the family photographer. It is also believed that Lawson’s grandmother was a housekeeper for Kodak’s founder, George Eastman.

During their childhood, Lawson and her sister were inseparable. They participated in a program that transported students from urban areas to a suburban school but were eventually moved to an inner-city institution after facing expulsion for fighting. Lawson recounted the shift to The New York Times in 2021 as “the first moment I became aware of differences in education based on socioeconomic status and the privileges and accessibility that some students had over others.” In 1997, Deana and Dana Lawson enrolled in the international business program at Pennsylvania State University, residing in the same dorm during their initial year. Around this era, Dana Lawson was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and decided to leave business school to concentrate on African American studies and English. Deana Lawson, in contrast, sought to pursue fashion design at Parsons School of Design in New York City, faced rejection, and ultimately discovered her passion in studying photography at Penn State.

In 2000, Lawson met painter Aaron Gilbert, and soon after, the couple welcomed a son, Judah, born around the time Lawson completed her B.F.A. at Penn State in 2001 (later, they had a daughter named Grace). She subsequently enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) alongside Gilbert—Lawson focused on photography while he pursued painting. During her time at RISD, Lawson impressed her mentor, conceptual artist Sarah Charlesworth, with an image she captured of her mother in her wedding dress sitting at the family home. “That marked the inception of the familial gaze, alongside the aspect of staging, connected to real life,” Lawson shared with The New York Times.

In 2004, Lawson completed her M.F.A. and returned to Rochester while Gilbert finalized his degree. She took on administrative roles at a law firm, including data entry, customer service, and telemarketing. In her leisure time, she took salsa dancing classes and requested her instructor to pose for a photo. “That became my initial nude, and it shaped my future work,” she reminisced in The New York Times. After Gilbert moved to Rochester, Lawson took a break over the summer to fully engage in photography. She traveled around seeking potential models and settings, claiming that this practice “crystallized many of my techniques.” In 2006, Lawson, Gilbert, and their son relocated to New York City, where she secured an administrative position at the International Center of Photography. There, she benefited from taking an unlimited number of free classes, seizing the chance to refine the technical elements of her photography.

Turning point and recognition

A pivotal moment in Lawson’s career arrived when the Museum of Modern Art in New York chose several of her works to feature in their “New Photography” exhibition in 2011. These photographs encapsulated her distinctive style. Baby Sleep (2009), for instance,captures a bare woman being fondled by a shirtless man in an empty living area where a baby is napping in a swing nearby, while Roxie and Raquel, New Orleans, Louisiana (2010) displays twins positioned in awkward symmetry on what appears to be their bed in a faded, yellow room.

In 2012, Lawson commenced her teaching role at Princeton University, and the year after, she was awarded the esteemed Guggenheim fellowship, which permitted her to journey and capture images in Haiti, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her works from these ventures comprise Mickey & Friends <3 (2013), a photograph depicting two nude women, their bodies oriented toward each other and their hands clutching each other’s hips, positioned in front of a wall in Kingston, Jamaica, alongside a depiction of Mickey Mouse occupying an ice cream cone. Another piece, Mama Goma, Gemena, Democratic Republic of the Congo (2014), illustrates a woman raising her hands, donned in a shimmering blue gown that features a cutout to highlight her pregnancy. Several of these images were presented at Lawson’s solo showcase at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015. Her prominence surged when her image Binky & Tony Forever (2009) adorned the cover of Freetown Sound, Blood Orange’s album released in 2016. The image portrays a young couple embracing atop a golden bedspread. Further acclaim followed as her artwork was displayed at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, and in 2018, she photographed Rihanna for Garage magazine. The images capture the R&B artist and cosmetics entrepreneur clad in extravagant ruffles, a style that contrasts with the shabby domestic setting.

The Hugo Boss Prize and additional exhibitions from the 2020s

Lawson was honored with the 2020 Hugo Boss Prize, becoming the inaugural photographer to receive the accolade, which included a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The resulting showcase, named “Centropy” (2021), featured a hologram of a torus, a circular surface formed by a circle rotated around an axis within its plane. A selection of her new large-format photographs also incorporated holograms, three-dimensional visuals produced with the same technology that enabled a performance by the late rapper Tupac Shakur at the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. “The holography allows [audiences] to reflect back on the photographs,” Ashley James, one of the curators of the exhibition, remarked to Artnet News in 2021. Holography prompts viewers to contemplate how photography “can both mirror the real and approximate the superreal. I believe that’s a question that steers the work.” Moreover, Lawson directed a short film for the exhibition, also denoted “Centropy,” which delves into the artist’s creative process. She later followed this up with a traveling survey of her work (2021–23) that commenced at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and concluded at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.