Echoes of the New York City’s East Village Art Scene:

LD Lawrence has had a successful career as a recognized artist and is still continuing to produce works for private collections. She describes herself as an “abstract supremacist” – an artist working in the abstract with a spiritual focus.

As an artistic child, LD concentrated on being a colorist and began to develop an eclectic style of abstractionism. In the 1970's she lived in Taiwan and then returned to New Orleans and began a career as a struggling artist.  She received local artistic acclaim with recognition from NOLA art critics after solo shows at the NOLA Opera, the NOLA Symphony and the NOLA Library. Deciding to pursue eclectic art forms ,LD lived in Mexico to study petroglyphs in the Baja Peninsula. LD returned to the US to the lower east side of New York where she became connected with galleries in the East Village in the 1980’s. The East Village Art Scene was a spectacular breeding ground for young artists, misfits and rebels who went on to become the biggest names in art. Her first New York solo show was at the St. Marks gallery and won enthusiastic reviews from New York art critics. As her public acclaim increased she was acknowleged by older, more established artists, like Andy Warhol.

Happening alongside the intimately- related subcultural explosions of punk and hip-hop, artists and curators created spaces in their small apartments, showed rebellious and iconoclastic work to friends and neighborhood figures, and eventually created such a vibrant scene that the art market had to take notice.

The East Village eventually became a real estate developers dream as the area became gentrified. The East Village's thriving art scene dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, primarily due to the prohibitive rental prices in the newly gentrified neighborhood. By 1985, the landmark FUN Gallery closed its doors due to declining market interest in graffiti and street art. Two years later, the East Village Eye published its final issue.

By 1988, almost all of the one hundred or so galleries that had emerged since 1980 had either closed or moved to SoHo or Chelsea. For more history on the East Village art scene go to https://www.theartstory.org/movement/east-village-art/

Starting in the 1990’s LD’s gallery clients were in Paris, Hong Kong, Montreal, Coral Gables, Atlanta, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Seoul. She had developed into a recognized artist with critical acclaim.

With the birth of her daughter, LD moved to the Washington State Olympic Peninsula, a truly beautiful part of America, but remote and a difficult trek to the urban meccas for art. LD continued to pursue her art career by catering to private collections. She has had group shows at the Seattle Art Museum and the Tacoma Art Museum, but the difficulty of travel eventually led her to concentrate on commissioned work.

In the 2010’s LD began to experiment with new ways to work with prints, working with monoprints and oil transfer drawings popularized by Paul Klee.

Her smaller works, such as her monoprints and hand colored monoprints, are a wonderful way to start a fine art collection. Her medium sized works stand alone as colorful abstractions that would be welcomed in any private collection. Her very large works are wall-sized and suitable to larger areas or corporate spaces.

LD and Andy Warhol at an opening 1982