Photographer Deana Lawson shoots intimate staged portraits that explore legacy and collective memory. Her pictures, which reflect both actual histories and made up narratives, focus exclusively on Black subjects posed in richly detailed environments and interiors. Lawson draws on photographic and figurative portraiture, social documentary, and the archives of family photo albums.
Union Springs depicts a lowrider car with an almost animalistic feel, its lush green setting appearing less incongruous than one might expect. Lawson was captivated by the way in which the vehicle’s vibrant chrome finish was heightened by the rainy conditions in which the shot was taken.
Lowriders, which are characterized by lowered bodies, trace their origins to Mexican American youth culture of the 1940s. Typically decorated with elaborate designs, they feature rims fitted with hydraulics that allow the vehicle to be lowered or raised. In the 1990s, these ostentatious motors became associated with West Coast hip-hop and G-funk culture and appear in music videos of the time by such artists as Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg, and most recently Kendrick Lamar, on the cover of his album GNX (2024).
The reflective frame in which Union Springs is shown adds to its dimensionality, and comes from Lawson’s fascination with mirrors. The artist is interested in the fact that mirrors were considered magical tools of the dead in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom and were often placed in tombs as representations of the sun and the divine power of light. Many of the earliest mirrors, she has also noted, were made from polished black obsidian and were used for divination in Mesoamerican antiquity.
DEANA LAWSON (American, 1979)
pigment print
Acquired in 2025
