We were lucky to catch up with Ringo Lisko recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ringo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is actually not a direct part of my own creative practice–in terms of being a maker, anyway. In 2022, soon after choosing to go back to graduate school to earn my MFA, I started a project space in my rowhome apartment in Baltimore, Maryland. The space, called spare room gallery (SRG), is totally artist-centered. I have always been frustrated by the gatekeeping practices that artists run into within institutional spaces–whether financial, geographic, gender/identity based…whatever. It’s hard to show work, especially nowadays. SRG was born out of both frustration and isolation, and has proven to be one of the most fulfilling and heartwarming spaces I’ve inhabited. I work with mostly local (as well as a few national and international) artists to put on exhibitions and programming that supports their practices. To date, we’ve had three group shows, six solo exhibitions, and a number of collective/collaborative projects. It’s been such a joy.
The gallery can be found on instagram @spareroomgallery_bmore

Ringo, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am an artist–sculptor, drawer, curator, thinker…I like to make things happen.
I’ve been a curious and creative person my entire life, which definitely has caused my parents no shortage of stress.
But I formally started in the arts in college, at the University of Alabama (Roll Tide…). I actually entered as a Biology major, with the intention of going into ecology and conservation. While that still takes significant place in my approach to the world, I chose to transfer back into the Arts my second semester, after taking a sculpture class as an elective first semester. After earning my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture and Drawing in 2020, I worked for a few years as a sculpture fabricator.
In those spaces, I gained a real interest in, and respect for, material’s ability to translate relationship.

I decided to go back to school in 2022, to earn my Master of Fine Arts from the Rinehart School of Sculpture. While certainly not without its challenges, I think those few years were very affirming in that I was able to focus in on the conceptual aspects of my practice. For a lot of reasons, I stepped back from object-making to really analyze the processes and ideas that I interested me. My work still is investigating the marks we leave and the spaces we inhabit, but is doing so in what I hope is a more nuanced and poetic way.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

This isn’t a concrete resource necessarily, but LOOK BEYOND ART AND ARTISTS. Being an artist is an incredibly isolating experience at times, and the art world is its own beast. Some of my most invigorating experiences happen outside the studio, with friends in other fields. I have to remind myself constantly that we’re making art about life, and in order to do that you have to live it.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I think the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is when people respond to that odd space that art inhabits, where it speaks outside of language. People get so caught up in having to explain every little choice that they make, or in analyzing those moves in someone else’s work. I don’t want to do that. I’m interested in what lives beyond language.
Of course, it’s fantastic to figure something out or connect why I resonate with a work of art, but sometimes it’s better to just rest in that resonance. We live in a society where everything is expected to read instantly, to provide immediate gratification. Art was never intended to do that, and I think it holds a really special role in fighting that expectation.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @rrlisko , @spareroomgallery_bmore