Lawrence McCarthy’s paintings focus on obscure details of life around Vancouver, his favourite place to live and create. In streets and lanes, back alleys, the spaces between buildings, or on the edge of the industrial world, he finds examples of the natural world thriving in the midst of, or even in spite of, human influence.

Working sometimes from photos, sometimes from imagination, he represents the world as it might be; without war, unlittered and sane, in which water is clean and clear, forests are pristine, sunlight is bright, and shadows are dense and deep.

The desire to capture the sensation of prairie light inspired his first paintings. It led him to explore the influence that light, both real and metaphorical, exerts on the random, organic world.

He intends his pictures to be lingered over, to let the mind drift. Their purpose is to promote day-dreaming. The objects depicted – the rooms, skies, ships, trees, etc. – create the illusion of light and shadow.

The late afternoon light of late August, when shadows are deepest and nature is at its height is the primary inspiration. It’s the time of year that best exemplifies the bittersweet tension between light and darkness; metaphorically the transition between life and death, full of wistful nostalgia.

"Creation is the highest human achievement.  Each of us comes equipped with the ability to make something out of nothing. Whatever that creation might be, a painting or an atomic bomb, it ultimately becomes a living thing in the world and adds to the collective experience of everyone who has ever lived here.

Creativity isn’t the domain only of the artist.  The entire spectrum of human endeavour, from childbirth, to political philosophy, to scientific theory, was born from an idea that was fuelled by an act of creation.

Any society that believes this, flourishes."

Contact info: mccarthyisms@hotmail.com
604-708-8796