50|50 Artist Statement 2014 – Dr. Lisa Chu
Theme: “Premises: Places in Time, in Space, and in the Heart”
Media:
1. acrylic mixed media
2. watercolor & ink
This journey of making 50 pieces of 6”x6” art in 50 days reflects my daily travels through places in time, space, and in the heart. I played with the challenge of starting fresh each day and following the inspiration of that particular moment in my life. From sacred images of yoga, to the parts of the body I encounter as a Thai massage practitioner, to the alpine lakes and giant sequoia trees of the High Sierra at Yosemite National Park, to abstract visual poems exploring the flow of paint itself, each of these pieces offers a slice of my life as an artist living on the northern California coast.
The watercolor and ink series (rows 5 and 6) captures actual places in my environment that I illustrated en plein air (onsite) in every case. Two of the watercolor pieces (#41 “Morning Meditation – Polly Dome Lake” and #42 “Oasis – Ten Thousand Feet”) were created by immersion in high alpine lake water, one at 8,300- and one at 10,000-feet elevation. All of the Yosemite watercolors (#35 through #40) were created using water collected from the Merced River during my stay there in July 2014.
While I have practiced the arts my whole life as a musician, I am relatively new to the medium of visual arts. I would like to express my gratitude to the many artists who have nurtured, supported and encouraged my exploration with paint, by providing playful space, sharing materials, holding silence for creative expansion, and taking an interest in everything that has come through me onto the page or canvas. Without their inspiration, I would not have arrived at the audacity to claim myself an artist, nor the curiosity to apply for the 50|50 show.
5050 Art 