Nick Lawrence occupies an unusual position in the contemporary art world-a leading gallerist in New York, and a painter of rare character, wit and insight. His art practice is accustomed to navigating divides-most notably between the insatiable demands of the art business itself, and a more traditional concern for craftsmanship and content. The images in his current show walk a different type of tightrope-in this case, the knife-edge of romantic relationships. Lawrence investigates the brutal world of dating (both real world and internet) with all its miserable failures-miscommunications, inadvertent rudeness, reckless faux pas and double entendres, disastrous conversations. Blending the visual language of comic strips with a rugged aggression and highly evolved symbolist vocabulary, his paintings cut to the heart of the ongoing struggle between the sexes, exposing the contradictory impulses of desire and disgust underlying today’s sexual landscape.

Lawrence’s paintings draw from a wide array of stylistic influences, from Art Brut and Australian aboriginal dreamscapes, to the COBRA, Blau Reiter, Symbolist and Transavanguardia movements. There are also generous helpings of Dubuffet, Matta, Tapies, Barcelo, Oehlen, and Chia sprinkled in the work. His technique revels in the tactile, exploiting the sensual qualities of paint and a variety of natural components like tar, sand, shellac, found wood and rope—yet always in the service of his conceptual aims. In “Foot-in-Mouth,” for example, the violent paint handling, buffoon-like figuration, dissonant tones and conflicting textures mirror the painful awkwardness of the mating dance, all gone horribly wrong, as so often it does.

This is Lawrence’s first solo in five years, representing a body of work longer in actualization than previous productions, due to the day-to-day demands of establishing and overseeing galleries in New York and Provincetown. Lawrence is the founder and owner of Freight + Volume, a contemporary space in New York recently voted the Best New Gallery in Chelsea by New York Magazine, as well as a long-time owner/director of DNA Gallery in Provincetown, and for five years, co-founder and co-owner of LFL Gallery in New York.

Lawrence has exhibited widely throughout the US and Europe, and his work has been featured in such publications as The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, LA Weekly, and California Art Week.