saltwater woman

To waste time

121 × 91 cm

Oil and acrylic on canvas

Unsold

Suggested offer$3,700

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About the work

Waste Time

Oil and acrylic on linen, 121 × 91 cm

2025

To Waste Time examines the shell as architecture of transformation - a structure built for protection, then abandoned when outgrown.

The nautilus becomes a meditation on necessary departure and the vulnerability of transition.

The work interrogates contemporary tensions between productivity and presence. In an era that pathologizes stillness, wasting time becomes resistance- a reclamation of unmonetized attention and unhurried making.

The suspended figure occupies liminal space: neither grounded nor drowning, deliberately adrift.

Part of an ongoing investigation into marine forms as symbols of impermanence and shifting value.

What one organism discards becomes another's treasure - a commentary on how meaning transforms when structures are emptied of their original purpose.

About the artist

Annalisa Lawrence is an Australian contemporary artist whose practice centres on figurative painting and the emotional landscapes of coastal life. Born in Tasmania and now based on the New South Wales coastline, her work reflects a lifelong relationship with the sea - exploring presence, belonging, solitude, and human connection through restrained, intuitive mark-making.

Working primarily with acrylic on linen, Lawrence creates textured figurative compositions that favour gesture over detail. Faces are often softened or obscured, allowing the viewer to enter the work emotionally rather than through identity. Her figures exist in moments of pause, standing at the shoreline, moving through water, or resting within open space, evoking atmosphere rather than narrative.

Rather than illustrating specific stories, Lawrence’s paintings function as psychological environments. They hold space for memory, sensation, and stillness, inviting the viewer into a felt experience rather than a fixed interpretation. The sea is not depicted as scenery, but as a living presence, a force that shapes rhythm, form, and emotional tone.

Her work has been exhibited in galleries and art fairs across Australia and is held in private collections both nationally and internationally. Lawrence’s paintings have also appeared in Australian interior and design publications, where they are recognised for their quiet authority, material sensitivity, and emotional restraint.

Lawrence continues to live and work on the Australian coast, where place, family life, and the daily rhythms of the ocean remain central to her practice.

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