We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eliza Fisherman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eliza below.

Eliza, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

I’ve always had a complicated response to professional feedback. The first response is usually protest, the second confusion. The feedback I received invariably went, and probably will always go, right over my head. Understandable— if I knew about the mistakes professionals were pointing out in my work, I wouldn’t have made them to begin with.

These criticisms, from people whose own body of work I revered and respected, felt overwhelming. They should have seen, they should have understood, without understanding. But the sad truth is, that if you want to be seen, you have to find the courage to show yourself.

The first criticism of this magnitude came from a teacher, who promised to fail me if I didn’t produce something so far out of my usual style, that she wouldn’t recognize it as mine. Suffice it to say, I was furious. It took me two weeks of starting and stopping, dozens of failed attempts, each one pushing me beyond the status quo. The end result was baffling. She showed me that I contained far more than a single skill, or single style.

The second was a university interviewer. She looked at my body of work and was entirely disinterested. As she was about to dismiss me, I took out three tiny canvases—a triptych of line paintings of broken glass and soap bubbles. They were perhaps the work I loved making the most, but they were too graphic, and I believed, had no place in a fine art portfolio. She look at me and said: “This. This is actually good. You should have started with this.”

The third was a writing agent. They told me that my writing was good but my characters lacked motivation. And I had no idea what they meant.

The pieces I produce now are built on the back of all the work done to understand that feedback.

I learned that one must not only have something to say, but must also know how to say it. My work now is always motivated. If it’s not, it falls flat, and nothing can save it.

I learned that desire is an instinct, an intuition. The desire of an artist has to trump their perception of the desires of others.

And that finally, in any vocation, our breadth is not limitless by the visible horizon.

We are often told to ignore criticism, after all, it is the viewer misunderstanding the artist. But we should beware of dismissing valuable feedback as a misunderstanding. Sometimes the answers to our work lies just beyond it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My paintings are abstract, graphic, and layered. Massifs marbled with delicate, flowing patterns crack apart, divided by tectonic shifts. From within these fissures, heavy, glowing colors emerge, jostling to dominate the canvas.

This interplay of forces mirrors the themes central to my work: society-shifting conflict, its rippling effects on individuals, and the relentless drive to survive. The jagged fissures and luminous colors evoke the push-and-pull of survival’s symbiotic nature—one stumbles, another pulls them forward, only to stumble themselves and be lifted again, ad infinitum. This slow, systematic progression builds bridges across the void, as though the canvas itself becomes a monument to perseverance. For me, survival is not just endurance; it is the proof that survival is possible.

In an absurd world where the dissent into nihilism is not only easy, it’s logical, the lure of fear, faithlessness, hopelessness is forever beckoning with its rushing torrent. To slow down, to take time, to make a single true decision becomes an act of will.

Therefore, my work is slow. Every individual piece takes months of meticulous care to produce. The paintings insist that each stroke be a decision, a conscious, precise choice. To rush, means to lose the organic flow of the line, and with it, the foundation of the painting.

The choices we make, the people we love, the vocations we pursue, become the foundational groundwork of life. I believe in existential bravery. Collectively, we are the topography of our time. The Constanta. The strong and stable ground.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

We are given this life and body, this piece of ground that sparks our interest and we can do with them what we wish. We can create and destroy. For me, existential bravery means to strive to do the most we can do with what we are given, and that is the force that drives my interest and work.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I read everything, and try to avoid getting stuck in one genre or theme. The same goes for viewing. I go to museums, galleries, exhibitions. The wider my scope, the wider my vision. Knowing what people are doing, what they are thinking, expands my own thinking about my own work. Nothing has helped me grow more than the works of people who are better than me, stronger than me, and have gotten farther than me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @eif