A year of life where painting mattered less…
Image: Lakeshore Gazebo, Kingsville (2025) by Todd Lawson – Available
If you’ve followed my work for a while or at all over the last 20 years you may have felt like for the past 8+ months I vanished. There is a reason for that. Life got in the way. Last year my wife was diagnosed with cancer and artwork suddenly didn’t matter so much. Thankfully she is slowly recovering and though not out of the woods yet is doing much better. This has opened up the rest of 2026 for me to start to create again. It won’t be at the same pace as past years and I’m not sure what my subjects will be and if the work will be as large as it has been for the past 15 years due to the rising cost of supplies and the lack of appetite for collectors to spend on bigger pieces all the time – but I will be creating again.
Currently I have a 30 x 30 panel to prime and paint and after that I’ll be possibly playing with some smaller sizes for a bit to get back into the flow again.
I did finish a painting a few months ago that I’m happy with that will be part of a new series I’m tentatively calling “South Western Spaces” – based on my relocation to the deep South Western Point in Ontario that is small town Kingsville on the lake where for the first time I’ll be focusing on spaces and myself and not visitors from somewhere else or my daughters who have populated my work for over a decade. Until I find the time to upload and properly frame/photograph that recent piece I thought I would share it here in this update.
Thank you for the few who have supported me over the last 25 years of painting and welcome to any new folks who have recently found my work. I’ll get back into the swing, but it will be a soft swing for now.
