'working it out' - works by Lisa Barthelson

Formerly a painter, Lisa Barthelson has been working in a number of artistic media: printmaking, ceramics, photography, mixed media, found object construction, and environmental installations for over a decade.  She has found that the multiple media enhance and influence each other.  The unexpected that comes from intuitively exploring their confluence, creates new ideas to be built upon, and new realms of color, texture, scale, motion, and space to explore.  Ms. Barthelson’s work has also focused on re-using and repurposing the detritus generated in her home and by her family, providing a new perspective, and new life to ‘old stuff.’  In the past couple of years the artist has made 3d forms from everything from her children’s discarded Legos to the downed branches and electrical cable left from this past December’s historical Ice storm.

Ms. Barthelson's ‘working it out’ exhibition at the Greater Worcester Community Foundation is comprised of work selected from abstract prints of circular and stitched forms from the ‘o…out…obsessively’ series.

The genesis of all of Ms. Barthelson’s work, including the monoprint/mixed media pieces in ‘working it out’  is her desire and need to work things out through her artwork.  The seeing, the feeling and the making of the art act as the lens through which the artist explores her inner world and the world around her.  The making of art is a journey.  Its creation provides perspective and a way to stop, start, and embrace the unexpected along the way.

“My art is the result of a need to bring my inner vision …out, and into the world.”   

Lisa Barthelson,   2008