Statement

Everything in life inspires me, not quite with direct interpretation, but as I see and experience faces, words, gestures, colors and shapes – all of it – I am always looking and reacting to the energy around me. It can become a self-centered reflection of whatever is around that interests me rather than great issues that have to be answered objectively. All of this gets channeled and flows from brain to arm, hitting white board with that first wonderful stroke of vibrant color, and continues with adding and subtracting, stripping down to the most essential. I am in love with the eloquence of sparseness and everything to do with the act of painting: the smell, the lushness of oil paint, color.

There is unmitigated spontaneity driven by emotive forces, reacting intuitively, chance and choice. The works are not meant to be narrative, but visual explorations. These explorations evoke sensation in the viewer that are not bounded by the literal, but can be broadly identified as physical, spiritual or psychological. The titles are personal associations. I try to work with a straightforward painter’s vocabulary without pretension. I’m not interested in postmodern irony or intellectualizing about painting.

My methods of line and stroke are deliberate, intuitively unidentified. I don’t labor over works. If they start to trouble me, they need to be set aside, while I move on to the next piece. This keeps several pieces in process and the momentum keeps ideas clear. Logic and intuition are always shifting and struggling between what will be viewed and holding onto my pure intention.

“Lisa Kowalski is not afraid to paint. With bold, fluid brush strokes and minimal style, her paintings have a childlike freedom and a sophisticated spontaneity. Her dynamic oil paintings are infused with creative energy, an intuitive sense of color, and an innate understanding of composition. Reminiscent of the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940′s and beyond, Kowalski unleashes the creativity of her approach, therefore making the process just as important as the painting itself. She paints what she feels, capturing the essence of herself and all she has absorbed in uncalculated marks, rich textures, and games of positive and negative space.”
– Scott Lafontsee