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.
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- TURNER GALLERIES | showcasing contemporary art
at 470 WILLIAM STREET NORTHBRIDGE WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6003 - TURNER GALLERIES HAS NOW CLOSED.
This website is an archived record of the exhibitions and artwork shown at the gallery. - Turner Galleries acknowledges the Whadjuk Nyoongar people as the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters where Turner Galleries is situated, and pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
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