Lisa Pressman’s career as an artist has been marked by exploration of the expressive potential of a variety of mediums, among them oil, encaustic, cold wax, and mixed-media collage. Her work is abstract, conceptually based, and process-driven, featuring marks, forms, colors and patterns that are evocative rather than descriptive.
A New Jersey native, Lisa developed rich visual imagination at an early age. Her father owned a lumberyard and her mother was an actress, artist, and antiques dealer. Lisa grew up surrounded by building materials and immersed in multiple forms of cultural expression that nurtured her curiosity and aesthetic sensibility. A trip to Israel when she was 12 revealed to her that the world is filled with a variety of visual images, textures and colors that contrasted sharply with her previous experiences. This recognition of her own visual acuity was the defining moment when she realized she was going to become an artist.
Lisa received her Bachelor of Arts degree in fine art from Douglass College at Rutgers University, with an emphasis in ceramics and sculpture, in 1979. As a graduate student she changed her emphasis to painting, and in 1981 was awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Bard College. Since then she has exhibited regionally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions, and her work is held in numerous private and public collections. Her work is represented by Susan Eley Fine Arts in New York, Addington Gallery in Chicago, and The Gallery of Fine Arts in Telluride, Colorado. Most recently, Lisa has been awarded a solo exhibition at the Mulvane Art Museum in Topeka, Kansas.
A highly respected arts educator, Lisa maintains a vigorous teaching program. She’s been on the faculty at the former Art Institute of NY, a visiting professor at Pratt Institute and other universities, and has taught workshops in France, Mexico, Italy and the U.S. Especially renowned for her teaching of encaustic and cold wax processes, she is an annual presenter at the International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown, MA. She also is an instructor for R&F Handmade Paints and Gamblin Artists Colors. As a mentor, her focus is on the facilitation of each student’s voice − the awareness of the source of what they are doing and why, and the medium and visual language with which they can most effectively express their artistic vision.
