Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Adams.
Hi Lisa, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The life of an artist can be unpredictable and there is seldom a given formula for duration or success.
I began making art before Kindergarten. Having discovered a reproduction of Salvador Dali’s “Persistence of Memory” at age ten, I was certain I would become an artist. At thirteen, I came upon Charles and Ray Eames’ short film “Powers of Ten” and I saw my first non-objective painting by Karl Benjamin. Even though there were no artists or art influences in my family, I called myself an artist from that point on.
In 1980, after completing an undergraduate and graduate degree in art, I moved to SoHo in New York where I lived and exhibited for five years. Eventually, I moved back to LA and continued making and exhibiting my work. In hindsight, I consider New York to be my real art education.
From the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, I was awarded several foreign artist-in-residencies which allowed me to dip in and out of living in the United States. Much of my time in LA has been spent downtown—the downtown of the past, before development, and the downtown of the present, but now I live in Santa Monica.
Today, I am very happy to continue to make my work and look forward to new opportunities. Sometimes unpredictability can also be exciting.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
For me, I wouldn’t say it has been a smooth road. As I previously mentioned, the unpredictability of an artist’s life is almost a given – there is no certain outcome. An artist must have faith in themselves and their work in order to continue in the face of so many obstacles. There is also the reality of the art world structure, which as professionals we need to navigate and that is not always easy. Also, the definition of success changes over the course of an artist’s lifetime.
Of course, we would all love to either have huge amounts of money to begin with or generate tons of money from our art but very few artists can claim that. Does that make other artists, the majority of artists in fact, failures? Personally, I don’t think so.
Placing your work at the center of your life, advancing your work and making the best work you can, is the most fundamental thing an artist can do. That is the real struggle. From here, all else is possible.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
After four decades of art making, I’ve evolved into a painter. I paint methodically and slowly in oil paint, using my own photographs as references as well as working from my imagination and personal experiences.
I’m probably best known for my idiosyncratic paintings. They are an admixture of fact and fantasy – amalgamated fragments manifesting in a disjointed and, at times, dystopic whole. My work operates between abstraction and representation, the natural and human-built worlds and finally between the imaginary and the real.
My endurance and drive to continue to make my work over the past forty years gives me a sense of pride.
What sets me apart? That’s a tough question. I’m not unique in that I’m one of a great many hard-working artists in this city. It’s probably my vision of the world and my surroundings that is most unique.
What’s next?
My plans for the future are wide open and I’m sure there are big changes on the horizon!
I’m looking forward to finding the right gallery to represent my work again, one that is a good fit. I enjoy the business of working with a gallery and the interactions and opportunities a gallery structure provides an artist.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lisamakesart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisamakesart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisamakesart
