Lawrie Vause was born in Lancaster but has been resident in Liverpool for many years and credits the city with saving his life. An article in the “Liverpool Echo” from 2019 explains how he settled in the city after a life of homelessness and alcoholism. He has established himself as a self taught artist, using the name “Paris Toxteth”, and his projects are increasingly ambitious. All of this has been achieved on his own initiative and mostly using solely his own resources.
His first artwork, “Playing with fire”, consisted on a number of outsize matchboxes and matches dealing with the issue of hidden homelessness. Lawrie used his Citroen 2CV van to tour a number of cities in England with the artwork in 2019. He concluded with a pop up exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool that was seen by visitors from around the world. Photos can be found at Paris Toxteth Instagram
Then came a sculpture called Amy on the theme of homeless children, who are not documented in official statistics. This has been displayed around Liverpool. Photos may be found at Instagram.
The next project “Lifehouse” in October 2020 was a multimedia installation in a property in Granby Street. A series of moving pictures were simultaneously projected from inside the property on to screens inside each of the windows and accompanied by a soundtrack. A film of this can be found on the Lawrie Vause YouTube channel.
After the pandemic struck Lawrie occupied his time developing his skills. He taught himself to create stop motion animation with soundtracks and made a number of short films that can be found on his YouTube channel. The first of these, “On the avenue”, from October 2020, was just over two minutes long and consists of a sequence of still images.
“The visit” from March 2021 was over eight and a half minutes long and is a moving picture. It chronicles the visit of an individual (Lawrie himself, identified by his hat) to an art gallery. In his imagination the paintings he sees become animated.
“Once upon a time in Toxteth” premiered in June 2021 and is another chronicle, of a day in the life of Lawrie and Princes Road. It features many locations, everyday incidents and individuals those in the area will be familiar with.
Lawrie has also been requested to produce work for others. A monochrome animated film noir set in Paris forms the video for “Racine” by Wendy James. Another animation accompanies a shanty created and performed by pupils at Lipa Primary School.
The most recent project debuted on the YouTube channel at the start of the year. “What Are You Going To Do With 390 Photographs of Christmas Trees?” by Richard Brautigan formed the basis on an extended (nearly fourteen minute) animation with three dimensional sets that took more than five months to create and is the most ambitious animation that Lawrie has yet to create. The credits are somewhat misleading. Lawrie received less support from others than he suggests. Why I am credited as “longshoreman” is a mystery.
The film will be screened at Granby Winter Garden, 37-39 Cairns St, L8 2UW, with live musical accompaniment by Lawrie and Rachael Diop on Sunday 19th February at 6pm.
More information about Lawrie can be found on his Facebook page.
https://www.instagram.com/paris_toxteth/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjMT9WouxJ4FiuZImz4JgVA
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/how-24-hours-liverpool-put-16612517