lisa wolfgramm

poured

6 september - 5 october 2013

Lisa Wolfgramm is one of Western Australia's most important abstract painters.

Previous exhibitions have revealed a painting practice in which she controls the surface of the work to an extraordinary degree. Early paintings consisted of creating optical illusions in paint by carefully dragging a toothed squeegee through wet paint, each layer drying before another applied and dragged again, repeated to build up a strangely woven surface. These were followed by several years of paintings created from applying small daubs of paint in a gridded pattern that created optical illusions of movement and great beauty. In a more recent series she filled large syringes with paint and trickled this viscous liquid down the surface of each canvas, just reaching the bottom edge to form a tiny drip. These highly colourful and tightly striped wonders belie the rigorous research it took to get each pigment the right consistency to achieve this feat. Her paintings are always the result of systematic explorations of method and process. Many small experimental works are created prior to each new body of work to study the reactions between colours and mediums, surfaces and canvas angles.

In Lisa’s new series of paintings, Poured, she continues to investigate the relationship between paint and surface, and most importantly, the impact of her actions and gestures. In many ways her artworks have always been performative pieces, where the physical act of creating is as important as the end painting. In Poured she has literally poured the paint onto the canvas surface. She views "the nature of the pouring process as a unique and unrepeatable occurrence over which I have limited control. Pouring paint at a distance from a horizontal canvas constitutes, if not a totally random act, at least a unique and unrepeatable event. The painting then becomes the trace or sign of / for that event. The pouring of large puddles of paint that float like undefined, shapeless volumes, untethered, bumping and overlapping, creates a narrative of paint and action... The painterly language is one of material, situation, time and staged performance. My actions, my bodily involvement in the event creates an immersive experience that speaks to me of scarcity, complexity and also of proximity"

However, Lisa is not one to let control go that lightly. She noted that "the serendipitous nature of the event aside, other aspects of painting are tightly controlled. Colour relationships and tonal values as well as the paint’s consistency, are worked out prior to the event. There exists a tension therefore between a sense of order and stability and that of the random and the arbitrary, as a balance is sought between letting something happen and making it happen."

In 2007 Lisa relocated to Darwin, and perhaps the new environment is having a subliminal impact on her work. There is not only a loosening in the way the paint has been applied, but also in the higher keyed colours that sweat and push at each other, rolling across the canvas like monsoonal tides in a rich and fertile land.

Lisa Wolfgramm studied at Curtin University and completed at Masters by Research this year at Charles Darwin University. Her paintings can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of WA, Artbank, Murdoch University, Curtin University, Bankwest, City of Perth, University of WA, Royal Perth Hospital, Cruther’s Collection of Womens' Art, Leeuwin Estate Art Series, Edith Cowan University, City of Fremantle, City of Joondalup and several others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #347
oil + varnish on canvas
40 x 40cm [x3]
2012
$2,000
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #344
oil + varnish on canvas
100 x 100cm
2012
$3,600 sold
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #345
oil + varnish on canvas
100 x 100cm
2012
$3,600
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #346
oil + varnish on canvas
100 x 100cm
2012
$3,600
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #349
oil + varnish on canvas
106.5 x 106.5cm
2012
$4,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #350
oil + varnish on canvas
106.5 x 106.5cm
2012
$4,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #351
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2012
$2,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #352
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2012
$2,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #353
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2013
$2,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #354
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2013
$2,200 sold
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #355
oil + varnish on canvas
91.5 x 91.5cm
2013
$3,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #356
oil + varnish on canvas
150 x 150cm
2013
$7,000
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #357
oil + varnish on canvas
150 x 150cm
2013
$7,000
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #358
oil + varnish on canvas
91.5 x 91.5cm
2013
$3,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #359
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2013
$2,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #360
oil + varnish on canvas
30.5 x 30.5cm
2013
$660
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #361
oil + varnish on canvas
30.5 x 30.5cm
2013
$660
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #362
oil + varnish on canvas
30.5 x 30.5cm
2013
$660
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #363
oil + varnish on canvas
25 x 25cm
2013
$500
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #364
oil + varnish on canvas
25 x 25cm
2013
$500
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #365
oil + varnish on canvas
25 x 25cm
2013
$500
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #366
oil + varnish on canvas
25 x 25cm
2013
$500
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #367
oil + varnish on canvas
25 x 25cm
2013
$500
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #368
oil + varnish on canvas
25 x 25cm
2013
$500
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #369
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2013
$2,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #370
oil + varnish on canvas
46 x 46cm
2013
$880
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #372
oil + varnish on canvas
46 x 46cm
2013
$880
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #373
oil + varnish on canvas
46 x 46cm
2013
$880 sold
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #374
oil + varnish on canvas
122 x 122cm
2013
$5,000
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #375
oil + varnish on canvas
122 x 122cm
2013
$5,000
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #376
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2013
$2,200
lisa wolfgramm artwork
painting #377
oil + varnish on canvas
70 x 70cm
2013
$2,200