April 2008, Featured Artist: Lisa Bartell

Artist Statement

I have always experienced an internal dialogue between life verses death. My paintings are a visual interpretation of this dialogue, colored by a long recovery from post traumatic stress disorder. This is an interpretation of a living death we all experience to varying degrees.

In the process of healing, a strength of intellect and emotion is discovered which allows for profound growth, acceptance and a forgiveness I call letting go. My internal conversation becomes a painting expressive of mind and spirit on the path between life and death.

The subject matter of my work is the human face and dried flora. The faces are haunting, simultaneously real and unreal, yet express strength of awareness. The flora, painted in the cycle of death, continues to be creatively beautiful in lines and forms drawn and painted with exaggeration and distortion.

The depth and complexity of the human face and the natural world become symbolic of the life and death struggle and eventual acceptance unfolding in every human life.

"We, who die daily in large and small ways, must take the demon death and turn it into life" - Dr. Martin Luther King

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