Lawrence Standifer Stevens
Artist. Photographer. Voice Talent.
Lawrence Standifer Stevens was fortunate in having some strong influences early on. His Big Brother, James Guthrie, was a filmmaker and photographer in Dallas from the 50s through the 70s and would occasionally give his young protégé a taste of the film production business by bringing him on set to see how the magic was made behind the camera. This is where Lawrence developed the patience to watch paint dry and water boil.
But it wasn't until his mid-20s that he began to take his photography seriously as a medium of expression. By the late 80s, Lawrence had begun experimenting with other artforms: batik, pottery (specifically, raku), digital art and illustration.
Coming full-circle to his original passion, photography, he dived into the digital revolution. Until he bought his own digital camera equipment, he begged and borrowed (but somehow never stole) cameras, lenses and lights from friends willing to take a chance they'd see their equipment again. They did and he made the most of their generosity — he taught himself and learned from those same friends a way of seeing the world that is, today, the basis for all his work, in photography and digital art.
Having spent the majority of his career communicating the messages of others through radio, multimedia, advertising, graphic design, photography, film and industrial voiceovers, Stevens now chooses to share his own observations of the ordinary through extraordinary digital paintings.
“My art came out of a love of color and texture, and the desire to combine them in such a way as to give form to them. Developing my technique over a period of more than twenty years, I create works in a style I refer to as Organic Expressionism. Working mostly in the digital domain, my pieces leave plenty of room to try different methods of adding texture in the analog world, making it infinitely adaptable as techniques and technologies change.”