Lisa Chandler

Lisa Chandler is a contemporary history painter - she looks closely at our moment in time and explores such issues as gentrification, migration, social and economic injustice, climate change and the current pandemic.

Chandler employs her love of painting to portray how these events affect individuals and society. Her paintings tell stories of loss, isolation, grief and exhaustion, but they also offer hope - showing how people unite together and support each other in difficult times.

Chandler holds an MFA (Hons) from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland. Since 2012 she has held 10 solo exhibitions, and been selected for numerous group shows including Cruel City at The Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand and the International Art Survey Beijing, China. She has been a finalist in a number of major New Zealand art awards including the National Contemporary Art Award (2015), the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award (2018, 2015) and the Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award (2015, 2014 and 2012). International artist residencies have included: Instinc, Singapore; Red Gate Residency, Beijing and the Leipzig International Art Programme, Germany.

In 2016, following her four-month residency in Leipzig, Chandler secured a permanent studio at the well known Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei art hub. From 2017 - 2019 Chandler worked in the Spinnerei every New Zealand winter developing a major body of work titled The Dividing Line.

The Dividing Line was first exhibited in Leipzig in 2018. Since then it has been shown at The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson; the Aigantighe Public Art Gallery in Timaru, Expressions Whirinaki Art Center in Upper Hutt and the Tauranga Public Art Gallery.

The continuing thread of Chandler’s practice is her love of the act of painting, the substance of paint itself, colour and types of mark-making. She constantly strives for a balance between abstraction and figuration. Urban structures and people intertwine through a process of layering, obliterating and tracing. Images are painted in, painted out and painted over. The history in the layers of paint traces the transformation of urban space. Alongside her large-scale paintings, she also creates works on paper, often including collage and printmaking techniques.

Chandler’s most recent solo exhibition was 'Landscapes of Loss' at Hastings City Art Gallery in 2022.

 

 


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