Lisa Marsh is a fine arts painter living and working in Los Angeles CA and founder of SOPA Studios, a studio space and collective located in South Pasadena
Bio / Artist Statement
Exhibitions
2024 15th Annual Figurative Art Exhibition, Lore Degenstein Gallery, Susquehanna University, PA, Juror Brian Kreydatus, William & Mary College
2023 LAAA Open Survey Exhibition: Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA, Juror Andi Campognone, Director, MOAH Museum of Art and History
2020 LAAA Open Survey Exhibition: Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA, Juror Shana Nys Dambrot, Arts Editor LA Weekly / Flaunt / Art & Cake / Artillery
2020 Collective Consciousness, The Front Gallery, New Orleans LA, Juror Ron Bechet, Professor of Art, Xavier University of Louisiana, Board Member, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Antenna Works and Ogden Museum of Southern Art
2019 Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, Agora Gallery, New York NY, Jurors Arnold J. Kemp, Dean of Graduate Studies, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Alaina Claire Feldman, Director of the Mishkin Gallery, The CUNY Baruch’s Contemporary Art Gallery, and Kentaro Totsuka, Director of hpgrp Gallery Tokyo
2019 California Centered Printmaking Exhibition, Merced Multicultural Arts Center, Merced CA
2019 UCLA Extension Annual, UCLA Extension Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (Recipient of Award of Distinction)
2017 TarFest Exhibition, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles CA
Publications
2021 Studio Visit Magazine, Volume 47, Curated by George Kinghorn, Director of University of Maine Museum of Art
Professional Experience
SOPA Studios Collective, South Pasadena, CA, Owner/Operator of Studio Facility, Gallery and Artist Collective, 2009-Present
Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825, Los Angeles CA, Member
statement
In my work I look to move beyond the binary to evolve representation that reflects lived experience and explores how today’s painted image builds upon a deeply encoded history when it comes to depicting the female form.
My paintings are developed from life studies engaging models. I am interested in how depictions of women within art build upon a history of representation that is deeply entrenched in our collective psyche. The image of female within art history is one that has positioned female potential within identities that are narrowly defined and marginalized. Both my figurative-based works and portraits draw from and point back to this exceedingly long history of representation.
I hope to engage the viewer’s gaze by creating images charged with a nuanced meaning that is disquieting. I am concerned with the fact that we live in a time in which doors previously closed to women and non-binary people have been unlocked, even as oppressive powers operate to undermine and displace fundamental rights. The discord within this climate is the tension in which lives are actually conducted -- my desire is to be a painter of the contemporary moment, working to evolve new representations of the female form that echo actual realities within lived experience.
Approach to Painting
Each canvas begins with the understanding that the finished work arrives out of process: outcomes are determined by instinctive use of hand and brush while constructing images concerned with human experience, beauty in the painted surface, and the unique potential of visual art to convey nuanced meaning.