Are you an artist, arts organization or venue?

artist

What town do you live in?

Longmeadow

In which disciplines do you work or exhibit?

Painting, Fiber

Artist Statement/Bio

I am making shapes on a canvas, but my shapes are portraits and my paints are reproduction quilting fabrics. I do not consider my work collage. I like shaping space, like Serra. My hope is that when you first see my work you think it relates to nothing, and then you realize it relates to everything.

It is important to me that I do not explain away my self portraits. I want them to remain a mystery, even to me. I find myself so drawn to the final product, almost entranced by them. At that point they are separate from me, they exist on their own and they seem to know things I do not, perhaps things I myself avoid. I feel almost a conduit for them. I let my mind show me images, poses, constructions of the form. I let my hands find them on the canvas and then fill the lines with the quilting fabrics. It is only then that I can try to know them. I avoid decoding anywhere in the process, I attempt to have only my unconscious mind create them. I do not plan a comment on say an an article I have read on violence against women in Congo, or the blown out oil pipe line, or living conditions in Haiti, or the controversy over the mosque near ground zero, or the ancient statues a collector has decided to repair, or my knee surgery, or my childhood, but then I see it is all there. These are the things I need to make, the things I need out of my head. My work is done out of necessity. I make art on account of the burden of being human.

I love working with the fabrics. The pace of it, the texture, the cutting, the articulation of little pieces to describe an arm, some hair, a nose; the slow meticulous making of a whole. The hands and faces are my favorite, they require the most care, they are the most specific. The fabrics soothe me and they soothe them. They cover their nakedness, heal some wounds, give them back some dignity. The fabrics are thicker skin.

I want the meaning unclear and bendable. I never want a viewer to feel done with it. I am specimen, I am spectacle, I am object, but I am not, too. I reflect, absorb, suffer from and rally against the depiction and treatment of women in art and in societies. I am covered, concealed, protected, adorned, loved and burdened with the fabrics of our fore-mothers. The materials are ever more important here, on this woman's naked body, in this "women's work". It is the eyes that are meant to be seen, and all they represent; the rest is mere utility and decoration. I have found my voice in my naked body, nudity is always political. In my work of me I sacrifice my dignity and right to privacy. I treat myself as something below human, because that is the life many of us live.

I like how hard it is to see me. The eyes exist somewhere beyond the surface confusion.
I feel it is this hard to know someone, to know ourselves, to know each other, it is this hard to exist in our world of pollutions (sure, environmental, but I was thinking of others) and distractions. I think we are mostly lost inside our labels, experiences, beliefs and emotions.

In my work I am being honest and sincere, I am existing despite and on account of all. My pieces are never only about me, but they are also never not about me.

Website

http://lisaafoster.com