We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa Lebofsky a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Lisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
I am a nomadic plein air painter, collaborating with nature and people. I paint the susceptibility of nature, correlating its restlessness with our own human vulnerabilities. My direct participation with the landscape is vital to imbue a painting with the energy of a specific place, so that viewers can connect viscerally: to move, excite and engage them. The paintings are on surfaces that remain visible through various layers of paint, permeating the entire image. The push and pull of lights and darks, opacity and transparency, abstract and real, enhances the variability of these transient scenes. By painting in this dichotomous manner, nature becomes a metaphor for our emotional struggles and encounters.
I find inspiration by traveling extensively, often to remote parts of the world, in order to immerse myself in different environments and cultures. I seek out areas around the globe that are particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, and meet with local residents to discuss how their community is impacted. To a great extent, these personal interactions inform what areas and what subject matter is ultimately painted. Regions visited include Antarctica, Newfoundland and Labrador, Greenland, and The Maldives.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was born and raised in the Hudson Valley of New York, birthplace of the Hudson River School – the first internationally recognized American art movement, known for presenting the sublime in nature. Paintings from this era were utilized in the conservation efforts in establishing the National Park Service in the early 1900s. I grew up in the woods to an ecologically friendly minded family. The first art classes I took focused on eastern styles of painting and brought us outside to capture the movement of waterfalls and windblown trees in paint. All of these influences have shaped the artist I am today: a traveler and curious guest in lands with their unique stories to be told in paint.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I had a personal upheaval that took me out of my home and was an unexpected reset on my lifestyle, goals, and interactions. While I clamored to find stability I realized I did not need to be in any one place, especially for the work I create. So I took a leap of faith, put my stuff in storage, loaded up essentials, my cat, and paint supplies into my car and took off on the road. First stop was Newfoundland where I did set up a place to land for the first 3 months while I tried out this nomadic lifestyle. I initially had a six month plan, but this quickly evolved to 3 years with no end in sight. I would hop from art residency to art residency, house sitting gigs, live in cat nanny situations, and learned to make myself, studio, and cat mobile and receptive. A second pivot came in late 2019 when my travel companion needed palliative care and needed a stable living situation. From nurturing relationships throughout my career, and as fortunate timing would have it, a former art dealer reached out at the same time to see if I wanted a job back in NYC. He knew I was on the road, had gallery experience, good with artists, and good with computers. He made me an offer I could not refuse and I found myself back in NYC in 2020, just in time to have a secure home, job, and life in the most uncertain of times.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Painting is the way I engage the world. If that activity is frozen, then my whole system comes crashing down, physically and emotionally. The act of painting is how I organize ideas, process conversations, self care, and refresh. Outside of my being, painting is the language I use to tell stories to share to connect us all. Art is about connection: through appreciation, common ground, emotional understanding. No matter who or where we are, we all experience feelings the same way. While my paintings address climate change concerns, they are also emotional portraits of struggle, fear, serenity, and hope – expressions every single human can relate to.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lisalebofsky.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisa_lebofsky/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisalebofskyartist/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisa_lebofsky