Laurence Watchorn

b. London, UK, 1994

Laurence Watchorn is an artist working with oil, oil stick, and charcoal to create large scale abstractions on unstretched canvas or linen. His process is defined by a lightness of touch and an automatist approach that embraces chance and accident. Watchorn constructs his own language of shapes and symbols which appear alongside bright washes of color, splashed and dripped across canvases that are worked unstretched on the floor. Watchorn's paintings hang on hooks like tapestries, with rough edges and curved corners referencing organic forms.

Watchorn cites a variety of influences in his work – from the cave art of Lascaux and Altamira to Kandinsky’s concept of Geist or ‘Spirit Within,’ animism and contemporary shamanism – which offer precedents for fusing the spiritual and material. Watchorn’s interest in shamanism informs his use of mirroring, in which coded texts appear in reversed formation such that they dissolve into lyrical abstractions.

Watchorn's mother was a dancer and his father a DJ, and together they ran a dance school. Watchorn continues to be influenced by music and movement, and is the co-founder of OOZ, a music collective based in South-East London. Watchorn’s connection to improvised music has prompted the artist to map out links between the visual and sonic. Watchorn describes listening as integral to his process – whether sounds in nature or music. Drawing upon musical notation and frequencies, Watchorn seeks to imbue his paintings with the same subliminal effect on the mind and body.

Watchorn has participated in studio residencies at the Bomb Factory South and Shaw Gallery, London, UK. He is also the recipient of the Cass Art Painting Prize from the Slade School of Art, where he received his BFA in 2022.