painting

On view: April 12, 2024 - May 11, 2024 | "In Quiet Motion" | Helm Contemporary, NYC

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HELM CONTEMPORARY is pleased to announce IN QUIET MOTION, a group exhibition featuring artists Kerri Ammirata, Lisa Blas, and Elise Thompson.

In Quiet Motion: April 12 - May 11, 2024

Collectively, these artworks vividly express the perpetual flow and motion of nature, capturing its transformative essence through the interplay of ambient light, reflections, and color. Infused with feminine energy, each composition celebrates the ethereal beauty found in atmospheric environments, drawing inspiration from elements such as earth, water, and space. The fluid gestures, intricate layers, and physicality of their surfaces create an immersive experience akin to a swell that recedes, gradually revealing the layers beneath—a stirring of curiosity that encourages viewers to explore both the visible and concealed moments within ephemeral atmospheres.

Lisa Blas | Routes to Oceania: banyan bark | Acrylic and interference paint on panel, 12 x 12 inches, 2021, Private Collection

Lisa Blas | Amber waves of grain, Shadow writer(s), v. 8 | Watercolor, gouache, metallic ink, dye-based ink, acrylic ink, acrylic and interference paint on canvas, 2023

Opening: April 23, 2023 | Lisa Blas "Pause (Play), Horizon" | 76,4 * Brussels

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76,4 is pleased to announce

PAUSE (PLAY), HORIZON

2020-2023

by 

LISA BLAS

from 23/04 - 28/05/2023

OPENING 

Sunday 23 April, 16:00-19:00 

Lisa Blas, Bruxelles, April 2023

2020___suspended time___2023

Rue de Bosnie appears on Google maps at an angle. Walking north from 76,4 in Brussels, the street intersects with Rue André Hennebicq at the roundabout. Here, one finds the New Hollywood café. Point your imaginary compass due west, and Hollywood, California, will eventually appear in the mind’s eye – where the sun, horizontality of the landscape and light’s reflectivity are in constant oscillation. 

PAUSE (PLAY), HORIZON is the quadrant of two horizons, geographical and biographical — and two periods of time, April 2020 and April 2023. As if folding the page of a book you were halfway through, and finding it again three years later, the narrative is re-remembered. Meanwhile, the interstices of daily life played out. 

At 76,4, I exhibit a painting spanning 2 x 4 meters. The viewer encounters a tilted curvilinear form with an oculus at the center. Similar to the aperture of a camera, the oculus is the space linking interior and exterior, the spectator and the object in view. In March 2020, the oculus shape emerged for me while painting at dawn — the view through my apartment windows, weather conditions, the western sky meets the Hudson River, forming a horizon line with the New Jersey shoreline. Horizontal divisions of space eventually gave way to curvilinear forms with a lacuna radiating at the center. These daily viewpoints accrue in time and space, and in memory — color appears and disappears through an infinity zone. I define them as “afterchromes”.

***

76,4

24, rue de Bosnie

1060 Saint-Gilles, Brussels 

Permanently visible from the street.

Hosted by Michel François, Ekaterina Kaplunova, Juan Pablo Plazas and Richard Venlet.

***

Opening tonight: February 1, 2023 | "In the Studio : New York Academy of Art Faculty Exhibition", 6-8 pm

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I am pleased to show recent work along with my colleagues at The New York Academy of Art! Please join us for the opening tonight, all welcome.

Opening Reception: February 1, 2023 | 6-8pm

On view: February 1 – March 5, 2023
Open Daily, 10am–6pm
Closed February 20, 2023

New York Academy of Art
111 Franklin Street
New York, NY 10013
212-966-0300

 For inquiries please contact:
exhibitions@nyaa.edu

Lisa Blas, Routes to Oceania, after Marthe W., Acrylic and interference paint on canvas, 57 x 45.5 inches, 2020-21

Artist-in-residence: Lisa Blas | West Cork Arts Centre | Skibbereen, Ireland | June-July 2022

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Greetings to all on this day of the summer solstice!

I am currently Artist-in-residence, at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Ireland, June - July 2022. While in the region, I am working on a site-specific body of work that draws upon local color, weather, light, and the history of Irish landscape painting. Parallel to this research, I am thinking about the notion of islands that embody personal and communal origins, formal circularity and interstitial spaces on the periphery.

In July, Dawn studio will be on site, in a special location where the sky meets water. I will host a painting workshop at sunrise, free and accessible to the local community. Stay tuned for further details on my public engagements and Open Studio via Instagram and Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre.

Lisa Blas
06 | 05 | 21, 6:02 am
Watercolor, metallic ink, dye-based ink and gouache on watercolor paper, 12 x 12 inches, 2021

Lisa Blas, Artist-in-residence, studio, West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Ireland, June 2022

Lisa Blas, Detail of palette notes, Watercolor, metallic ink, dye-based ink and gouache on watercolor paper, Skibbereen, Ireland, June 2022

Opening tonight: August 5, 2021 | Social Photography IX | Carriage Trade, NYC

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Opening tonight! Social Photography IX, the ninth annual group exhibition of cell phone photography brought to you by Peter Scott and the team at Carriage Trade. Please join us for a celebratory night with peers in support of non-profit galleries in the Lower East Side!

Social Photography IX
August 5 - September 30, 2021
Opening Tonight, 4-8pm

carriage trade

277 Grand St, 2nd Fl.
New York, NY 10002
646-863-3874
Thursday-Sunday, 1-6pm

Online Sales: socialphotography.carriagetrade.org
1 print: $75.00
2 prints: $120.00 (use promo code: 2/$120 at checkout)
3 prints: $150.00 (use promo code: 3/$150 at checkout)

Now in its ninth year, Social Photography brings together cell phone pictures of participants from a wide range of disciplines, generations, and places. In the spirit of broad access to cell phone image making technology, the emphasis of the project leans toward sensibility and the anecdotal over skill and mastery of the medium of photography.

Taking advantage of technologies that allow for images to be sent from anywhere, which are then formatted, printed, and displayed in an in-person exhibition at carriage trade, the range of participants in Social Photography reflect both the gallery’s community in Lower Manhattan as well as those associated with it in other parts of the world. Linking the virtual with the physical through an online display that is then presented in print form, Social Photography IX might be seen as a counterpoint to the increased placelessness of remote exchanges normalized in the pandemic-era.

Spanning nearly a decade, the growing, informal archive of Social Photography cell phone pictures occasionally reflect significant local, national, and international events (Occupy Wall Street, George Floyd protests, U.S. presidential elections, pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong) existing side by side with the everyday, the personal, the urban, and the domestic.

LISA BLAS, Dawn studio (eyelashes), 6:43 a.m., New York

About carriage trade :

carriage trade is a NY-based non-profit art space that was founded in 2009. Through presenting primarily group exhibitions, carriage trade functions not as a means to promote the careers of individual artists, but to provide contexts for their work that reveal its relevance to larger social and political conditions prevalent today. The exhibitions combine well known with lesser known artists, and historical pieces with very recent work, often integrating relevant found (archival) material as a means to broaden the scope of an art exhibition by positioning the "evidence" of everyday experience in direct relation to an artist's mediation of social conditions.

Opening: March 5, 2019 | Double Negative | ChaShaMa | New York, NY

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Please join us tonight for the opening of Double Negative !
  
   DOUBLE NEGATIVE | March 5 - 31, 2019  
   Curated by Darling Green
   Opening: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 | 6:00 - 8:00 pm
   Gallery hours: Thursday - Sunday | 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

   ChaShaMa
   320 West 23rd Street
   New York, NY 10011
   info@darlinggreen.com

   Readings, performances and screenings: Thursdays | 7:00 - 9:00 pm
   March 7, 2019 | March 14, 2019 | March 21, 2019 | March 28, 2019

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Opening: November 30, 2018 | Flag Me Down, Pick Me Up | Marquee Projects, Bellport, NY

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Many thanks to everyone who came out to support the exhibition Flag Me Down, Pick Me Up at Marquee Projects, what a celebratory night with like minds and hearts! At the end of the opening, Bob Morris read his poignant New York Times op-ed from 2016, entitled “From the Mountains, to the Prairies, to the Ocean to Vanuatu”, where the flag enters the frame at the other side of the world.

MARQUEE PROJECTS
presents



  LISA BLAS
 
 TYLER HEALY

 PAUL WEINER



Flag Me Down, Pick Me Up

Opening Reception: Friday, November 30, 2018

6pm - 8pm

On View: November 30 - December 31, 2018

MARQUEE PROJECTS is pleased to present Flag Me Down, Pick Me Up, a group exhibition featuring recent artworks by Lisa Blas, Tyler Healy and Paul Weiner. A reception for the artists will be held on Friday, November 30th from 6pm to 8pm. 

The artists brought together in this show will exhibit work that shares a common interest in the use of the American flag. Flags, in general, have much to do with traditional tribal tendencies and notions of identity: the idea of “us versus them.” But in today’s heated political climate it’s “us versus us,” with divided factions claiming that their allegiance to America is stronger than that of others. This exhibition hopes to bring about greater dialogue on what role the American flag, and what it signifies, now play. Can we pick up the pieces, strive to reduce conflict, and promote a greater sense of unity, peace and equality? 

Contact: Mark Van Wagner and Tonja Pulfer:
 INFO@MARQUEEPROJECTS.ORG
MARQUEE PROJECTS
14 Bellport Lane, Bellport NY 11713
(631) 803-2511
 

Opening: October 1, 2018 / The Drawing Center, New York / 2018 Benefit Auction

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Dear friends,

I have contributed a work to The Drawing Center for their 2018 Benefit Auction. Please join us Monday night, October 1, 2018, in support of one of New York’s most groundbreaking museums and their future programming! View the list of participating artists and works here: CATALOG

YOU ARE INVITED
The Drawing Center's
2018 BENEFIT AUCTION
Date: Monday, October 1, 2018
Time: 6:30-8:00PM
Location: The Drawing Center | 35 Wooster Street

The Drawing Center, a museum in Manhattan's SoHo district, explores the medium of drawing as primary, dynamic, and relevant to contemporary culture, the future of art, and creative thought. Its activities, which are both multidisciplinary and broadly historical, include exhibitions; Open Sessions, a curated artist program encouraging community and collaboration; the Drawing Papers publication series; and education and public programs. It was founded in 1977 by curator Martha Beck (1938–2014).

Opening March 24, 2018: Valediction / Ejecta Projects, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

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I am pleased to be participating in the inaugural group exhibition "Valediction" at Ejecta Projects, curated by artist Anthony Cervino and art historian Shannon Egan, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The gallery was founded after a book project the couple produced entitled "Ejecta", addressing their collaboration as artists, professors, writers, parents, and participants in the academic workplace and community life of Carlisle and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

In a beautifully written letter last January, Shannon and Anthony asked to include my work in an exhibition that would coincide with the opening of the gallery. Their venture seemed quite timely and a necessary antidote to these times of polarization and widespread discontent. Communities are in great need of new venues that arise from the spirit of collaboration and dialogue, where artists and exhibitions can be introduced to the public in a welcoming space for visitors, neighbors, colleagues and friends.

Please join us in support of this celebratory occasion of "Valediction" at Ejecta Projects from March 24 - May 5, 2018.

See you in Carlisle!

Ejecta Projects
136 West High Street
Carlisle, PA 17013
443.904.3649

 

LISA BLAS, Horizons, v. 2, Acrylic and interference color on watercolor paper on Opalux vellum, 19.5 x 25.5 inches, 2018
(Note: There are two sheets of Opalux, A over B, presented as one version of display)
Framed: 22 x 28 x 1.75 inches

Time eclipsed, Charlottesville: August 18, 2017

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Flashback Friday, or, into the future.

After the recent events in Charlottesville, I am posting a partial image from Meet Me at the Mason Dixon: A project in painting, photography and installation that I realized during the years 2003-2009, while living and teaching in Washington, D.C.

The project in its entirety was exhibited at Schmucker Art Gallery at Gettysburg College in 2011, with a catalog and accompanying texts by Shannon Egan and Miguel de Baca. In brief, this project examines the contested legacy of race and identity from the American Civil War onward, and the sign systems that point to those fraught subjectivities and histories. It is uncanny that my initial intuition about the repressed issue of race relations before and after 9/11 was confirmed by the growing civil unrest in American cities throughout these past years. 9/11 turned the collective consciousness elsewhere, namely to a foreign invader, becoming the country’s addressee in a long, protracted war while the social fabric of American society was itself coming undone. The ongoing dispute over heritage and removal of Confederate monuments from public space highlights that the familial and cultural attachments to history are ephemeral, and subject to change with each new generation. This is the space that Meet Me at the Mason Dixon occupies. As Erika Doss wrote in a special issue of Public Art Dialogue, The Dilemma of Public Art’s Permanence, 2016, “Public art is processual, dependent on various cultural and social relationships and subject to the volatile intangibles of multiple publics and their fluctuating interests and feelings”…“Public art is not, in other words, forever.”

Lisa Blas
Meet Me at the Mason Dixon
Installation view, Schmucker Art Gallery, Gettysburg College
Gettysburg, PA, 2011

Lisa Blas
Meet Me at the Mason Dixon
Installation view, Mixed-media, 9.5 x 15 feet approximately
Schmucker Art Gallery, Gettysburg College
Gettysburg, PA, 2011

Lisa Blas
(Day for night) Battle Scene, v. 11
Gettysburg Cyclorama, Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania
Archival pigment print, 2011

Opening June 10, 2017: "Drawing Practice" Whatcom Museum, Bellingham

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Opening today! A national survey on contemporary drawing practices.

Drawing Practice/Bellingham National 2017
June 11 - September 10, 2017 / Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA

Juried by Catharina Manchanda (Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seattle Art Museum)

Juror tour of the exhibition: Sunday, June 11, 2017, 1:00 pm
Whatcom Museum, Lightcatcher Building, 250 Flora Street, Bellingham, WA: 360.778.8930

Please join us!

Lisa Blas, Four Corners, Acrylic, watercolor pencil, interference color, gesso and watercolor paper on Arches paper, 102 x 102 inches, 2017

Opening: Lisa Blas / After lost space(s) / Kai Matsumiya gallery / Reception: Saturday, March 12, 2016

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Dear friends,

My exhibition "After lost space(s)" is now on view! Please join us for the closing reception on Saturday, March 12, 2016 at Kai Matsumiya gallery.

The show is up for one week only, Tuesday, March 8 - Sunday, March 13, 2016, as part of special programming entitled "Don't Make A Scene". Further information on "Don't Make A Scene" via Interview Magazine.

I look forward to greeting you!

Installation image: Lisa Blas "After lost space(s)" / March 8, 2016Photography: Brett MoenCourtesy: Kai Matsumiya / New York

Installation image: Lisa Blas "After lost space(s)" / March 8, 2016
Photography: Brett Moen
Courtesy: Kai Matsumiya / New York

“After lost space(s) is a project in collage and an installation of painted baseboards and door frames within the three gallery spaces at Kai Matsumiya Gallery. The work takes its inspiration from Guy Mees, Corita Kent, and nineteenth century photographers such as Adolphe Braun, Anna Atkins and William Henry Fox Talbot, and sets the stage where color, activism and the study of botanical specimens meet one another in collage and painting. Constructed on the axis of Guy Mees’s ephemeral works on paper and painting of architectural borders, Verloren ruimte (lost space), the gallery spaces at Kai Matsumiya and their “framing” are activated, along with references to geographical spaces that have disappeared. Typographical fields and images on vellum are united via horizontal and vertical architectural fragments of color, visible from room to room. The highlighting of painted baseboards and door frames functions like a pause, a comma, where the jagged and abrupt changes in the gallery floor plan are pronounced and echoed throughout the content of the collages themselves.”
— Lisa Blas 2016