Lisa Chandler
Lisa Chandler is a contemporary history painter - she looks closely at our moment in time and has explored such issues as the pandemic, climate change, gentrification, migration, and social and economic injustice.
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. Based in New Zealand year round from 2020 onwards due to the Covid pandemic, Chandler developed a new series titled Landscapes of Loss which explores personal, community and global loss. This series was exhibited for the first time in the main gallery of Hastings City Art Gallery in late 2022, and then at Aratoi Museum of Art & History in the Wairarapa in early 2024.
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.
This year, Chandler turns her attention to the impact of climate change and asks what we can do as individuals and communities to support our environment.
