Lauren Ottaway is a Melbourne-based artist.
Lauren derives greatest satisfaction and beauty from humble moments found in nature and still life.
She engages elements of wabi-sabi; asymmetry, negative space, and a flat aesthetic that de-emphasises perspective and shadow that give her work a timeless quality.
Her search for beauty in the imperfect and impermanent through botanical motifs has always been present; however her experience studying art in Japan heavily influenced her current style and mediums.
Her paintings are created using hand-crushed Japanese and synthetic pigments mixed with glue and water which is layered over time, imbuing the work with temporality, dimensionality and transformation.
Lauren also brings paintings to life for clients through commissions. Get in touch with her to bring something to life for your walls.
What is the red stamp in my paintings?
While I was living in Japan, I studied traditional Japanese painting, nihonga, sumi-e and gansai.
Strictly through Japanese and body language (due to my broken Japanese), my mentor, Kentaku-sensei, introduced me to rich Japanese pigments, the finest brushes you’ve ever seen (imagine 4 tiny hairs on a single brush used to paint the sliver of a crescent moon), delicate washi paper and silk boards.
Kentaku-sensei’s father runs a family business creating hand-carved marble rakkan (or signature stamp) for artists.
As a parting gift for my return to Australia, Kentaku-sensei presented me with this rakkan, for which she chose the kanji and meaning.
The pronunciation of my signature (or kanji) is my name in katakana, ro-ren. It’s meaning is lotus.
This is truly one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever received and enables this unforgettable experience and Japanese influence to live on in my paintings.
