Lisa Golightly

Tennis Lesson

2022

“I begin this short essay with my artists’ statement from 1997 because it illustrates my focus on emotion instead of on subject matter starting early on. I approached the idea of writing about what I paint back then with dread and tried to bypass it by being as honest as possible about my process. I’d like to think that I paint anything I want because through paint I can express how I feel. I started training to be an artist in early childhood. I studied texture. I learned about composition. I played with color and observed the beauty of line. My methods were unconventional and invented by me. Many different things inspired me: Cheerios in milk, clouds, hands in food, dry dusty dirt, wet mud puddles, coloring books, fashion photos in the newspaper and my keen need to observe my surroundings. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I had no answer. I just wanted to watch, and to observe the world around me. I’ve worked for years on a response to that complicated question “what is the work about?” I’ve developed all kinds of stories that seem to make sense at the time, but I have to ask, “isn’t this the same question as ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?”’ I am drawn to the figure, and to capturing physical expression in all types of situations, but especially when we are on our own. The body carries emotion, and most people are unaware that they reveal something of themselves when observed in private moments. When I was young I realized that I could easily understand the unspoken just by watching. It felt like a strange and isolating gift – and sometimes a curse – and I often felt confused and acted out in anger when the words didn’t match what I saw. But I still recognize all kinds of emotion there, and whether what I see is true or not, I relish the vulnerability of the moment. Color is another important tool for me. It’s a self-taught endeavor and one that I explore daily. Color mixing is similar to building flavors in a soup. A soup with just salt is watery and uninteresting. As in cooking, I pay close attention from the first layers what each color feels like in terms of its value, whether it’s warm or cool, and how it fits the composition. I am looking for something that feels harmonious with my nervous system. I begin with abstract shapes, then ask, “Is this shape interesting? Does this color work next to that one? Is it too strong? Is it helpful to the overall composition?” The more complex the mix, the more likely it is to hold my attention, and allow me to linger. Those puddles of paint sitting on my six foot glass palette...

"I paint the inside and outside of myself that surrounds me. I want to express everything I feel in life, such as my thoughts that are not organized, my image I want, me in relations...

"I paint the inside and outside of myself that surrounds me. I want to express everything I feel in life, such as my thoughts that are not organized, my image I want, me in relations...

"I paint the inside and outside of myself that surrounds me. I want to express everything I feel in life, such as my thoughts that are not organized, my image I want, me in relations...

Almazan Realistic Still Life Acrylic Painting. MIQUEL was an artist focused on the art of realism. His structured works on his great mastery of drawing, are romantic and translates...

This modern psychological portrait captures the tension between inner resilience and external chaos. A young woman with silver-white hair meets the viewer with calm determination. ...

Frame size 52x44 Is born in Madrid on the 21st july 1951. After attending primary school, he starts to grow an enormous tendency for drawing. At the age of 14 he begins to work in advertising and attends to the Vallecas school of arts. At the age of 14 he travels to Switzerland and in Geneve he gets intensly into painting and decides to dedicate himself only to it. When he returns to Spain he enrolls Arts Studies, and at the begining of summer '66, he visits Sitges, where he'll come back year after year and where ultimately he'll set his home. At this time he starts selling his painting in the flea market in Madrid and later in Sitges, setting himself on the street, thus completing his studies and making it economically. While he's in Madrid he recives lessons by Pedro Mozas at Bellas Artes and starts to learn profoundly about painting. In 1969 he starts painting portraits in the streets. In Sitges he creates, with other friends, a great artistic atmosphere in the Paseo de la Ribera, by the sea, that today still exists. He starts travelling through Europe, visiting and painting in Paris, London and Amsterdam. In the middle of this bohemian epoque, he moves to the Cannary Islands during the winters for 5 years in a row, he moves in the Parque de Santa Catalina "Las Palmas de Gran Canaria" where he works and meet all sorts of people in the streets, which later would mark his pictoric line. He becomes friend with Sidney Nagley in 1969, who organizes his first exhibition in Toronto, Canada. Afterwards he'll leave his studies and start painting exclusively in his studio. He gathers his first exhibition in the Ateneu of Barcelona in 1970. He befriends with the art critic of La Vanguardia, Fernando Gutierrez and the Count of Caralt orders him a set of illustration for a new edition of Garcia Lorcas Romancero Gitano. His first exhibition in a commercial gallery is done in the Majestic Gallery in Barcelona with a gorgeous collection of nudity drawings. He achieves huge success and for some years he affords his painting thanks to those drawings. During a period in Madrid, Mr Ponce de León, a consul in the Ministry of Exterior Affairs grants him with bachelor degree to study in the prestigious Academia de España in Rome. However, he can't accept it due to militar service obligations. Some days later, before joining the ranks he opens in the Cuatre Gats (Palma de Mallorca) with hiperrealist pieces that already then he presented as the first painter in that city, that later would become a fashion in 1973. After this period he meets José Maria Gudiol who advises positively. Since then, the intense work and the fight for daily improvement that has become the trademark of his life. The seek of styles and situations, the journeys through Europe always aware of all the tendencies that have in the art line that we can see nowadays. At his more than fifty years given to paint, his individual exhibitions beat the 100, his artwork is highly appreciated and valued in the complex market of art. In October 1982 hi makes his first exhibition in Tarragona. In the catalogue, writing of the unforgettable Fernando Gutierrez, he says "Fuentetaja is an artist of character and exceptional upbringing with a masterly knowledge of technique and resourses, and personality completely uncommon to the dimension of his sensitivity, as the richness of his deep and bloomed liricism. A judgement as accurate as foreseeing for the future outstanding of the artist, in where his paint soared through different phases mantaining an unquestionable quality. Lines, cubist, expressionist and hiperrealist till his current realism, in the middle of his creative maturity. Jose Luis Fuentetaja...

Figurative eye by outsider artist Phillip Q.