Lisa Bartleson
Works
Biography
EDUCATION
1991 BA Biology, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
EXHIBITIONS
2023 Gardenier, FP Contemporary, Los Angeles CA (Feb)
2022 Light and Space, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert CA, (Oct)
2019 Circle of Truth, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster CA (Aug)
Felt Before Seen, FP Contemporary, Los Angeles (Apr)
2018 Holding Up Half The Sky, Roberts Project, Los Angeles (Oct)
Circle Of Truth, NUMU – New Museum Los Gatos (Oct)
Extent, The Main Museum, Los Angeles CA (Mar)
Kindred, solo exhibition, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster CA (Feb)
2017 Full Bloom, Nancy Toomey Fine Art, San Francisco CA (Nov)
2016 Work Over School, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles CA (Sept)
Gathering Light, Nancy Toomey Fine Art, San Francisco CA (May)
2015 Where I Live, FP Contemporary, Los Angeles CA (Mar)
Legacy, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster CA (Jan)
2014 California Dreaming, Traveling exhibition, Palazzo della Provincia di Frosinone, Rome Italy (OCT), Oceanside Museum, (Dec) and Riverside Museum (April -2015)
Women in Light, Raffaella de Chirico, Turin Italy (June)
Inform_Form, LAUNCH Gallery, Los Angeles, (May)
2013 Reflections, Amyd, Milan Italy, (Nov)
Transitive, Fuxin Gallery, Miami FL, (Sept)
Juxtaposed Gestures, Fresh Paint Fine Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (Sept)
Slow Reveal, Toomey-Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco CA (Aug)
In To The Light, Art 1307, Naples Italy (June)
Caravagio, Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples Italy (June)
Luminous, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Deset, CA (March)
2012 Summer of Jack Part III, Katherine Cone Gallery, Los Angeles CA (Aug)
Made In Venice, The Gallery, Venice CA, (July)
Smooth Operations; Substance and Surface in CA Art; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster CA
Flawless Finish Fetish, Susan Street Fine Art, (May)
Impact: Emotions of Color, Virginia Miller Gallery, Miami FL (May)
California Abstract Painting 1952 to 2011, Woodbury College Nan Rae Gallery
2011 Gleam In The Young Bastards Eye, William Turner Gallery, (Nov)
SLAM, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo, CA (Aug – Sept)
How The Light Gets In, Toomey | Tourell San Francisco, CA, (April – May 2011)
What’s New, Pussy Cat? Torrance Art Museum, Torrance CA, (January 2011)
2010 South Bay Focus, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance CA, (November 2010)
Color, Andi Campognone Projects, Pomona CA, (August 2010)
2009 Raw Interior, solo exhibition, s’ Hertogenbosch, Holland (Oct 2009)
Angles Gate Cultural Center, solo exhibition, San Pedro, CA (July 2009)
Cerrulean Gallery, Uncommon Composites, solo exhibition, Dallas Texas (Feb 2009)
2008 Fine Art and Artists, solo exhibition, Georgetown, Washington DC
William Turner Gallery, Liquid Supercool, Bergamont Station, Santa Monica CA
George Billis Gallery, solo exhibition, Los Angeles, CA
2005 Fresh Paint, “Connected”, Los Angeles, CA
2002 Ron Judish Fine Arts, Denver, CO
COLLECTIONS
Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples
Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA
Private Collection’s through out the US and Europe
MEDIA/REVIEWS
Art LTD, Review of Where I Live at FP Contemporary by A. Moret Sept 2015
Art Scene LA, Review of INFORM / FORM at LAUNCH Gallery LA by Molly Enholm May 2014
Il Mattino, “Tutti I colori della luce ricavati nella bottega dell’arte”, by Tiziana Tricarico
Art Pulse Magazine, Summer 2012, review of Emotions: Impact of Color, by Elisa Turner
White Hot Magazine, Dec 2011, Review of Gleam In The Young Bastards Eye by Megan Abrahams
Fabrik Magazine 015, Peter Frank review of Gleam In The Young Bastards Eye
Huffington Post, Haiku Review – Review of How The Light Gets In, Peter Frank 5/27/2011
LA Art Diary, interview by Tracey Harrish 3/2011
The Magazine LA, November 2008, Review of Liquid Supercool at Willaim Turner Gallery, by Greg Stephans
Residency / Lectures
Residency – Art 1307, Naples Italy May-June 2013
Lecture – From Art to Didactics, Liceo Artistico Statale, Benevento Italy
Texts of Critics
Il Mosaico del Nuovo Millennio di Cynthia Penna
Tutti i Colori della luce ricavati nella bottega dell’arte – In mostra i lavori di Lisa Bartleson realizzati a Napoli di Tiziana Tricarico
pubblicato su Il Mattino
Per Caravaggio una luce dalla California di Tiziana Tricarico
pubblicato su Il Mattino
Bibliography
Architectural Digest, Dec., 2008
Sunset Magazine, Dec., 2007
Video
ALEX COUWENBERG AND LISA BARTLESON : INFORM/FORM
Film by Eric Minh Swenson. Music by Jon Wheeler.
LAUNCH LA is proud to present Inform/Form, a joint exhibition by Lisa Bartleson and Alex Couwenberg. Inform/Form features two artists, who despite their diverging techniques and motifs are united by their masterful use of color and an appreciation of Southern California’s rich abstract legacy.
Lisa Bartleson’s latest works, part of a series called ‘Gradient’, radiate an infinite and immersive depth. Composed of bio-resin saturated with natural pigments and then poured into forms, these cast pieces display little visual information besides the gradual transition from one shade of color into another. This simplicity however is precisely what makes Bartleson’s new work so memorable. She is the epitome of the Southern Californian ‘Light and Space’ ethos – her works give a sense of light without actual illumination and achieve a kind of depth with color that perspective and other tricks of the trade cannot hope to imitate. For Bartleson these images represent the light she experienced while growing up in Northern Washington, where the atmosphere was often filled with tiny water particles which refracted the sun’s rays to give off blankets of ambient light. Hoping to evoke a similar feeling she created absorptive surfaces that the viewer “looks into rather than through”. The final images are stirring and evocative without being didactic or prohibitive. These gradients could just as easily be a chunk of the planet’s atmosphere or even the progressively darker depths of our oceans – they could be poignant metaphorical devices or maybe – just man-made objects of pigment and resin. Bartleson, in any case, is a generous creator – she invites us to join in the act of creation.
Though Alex Couwenberg shares some of Bartleson’s influences, his paintings also contain traces of the wider cultural phenomena which make up ‘Californian’ identity – things like surfing, skateboarding, as well as West-Coast punk and hot-rods. His geometrical arrangements, built out of layers upon layers of paint, show his appreciation for the hard-edge school of painting and yet also capture some of the essence of the Californian sprawl that surrounds him. The long parallel lines of his surfaces seem like miniature boulevards stretching from the mountains to the sea and his boxy shapes are reminiscent of the utilitarianism found in L.A.’s Art Deco industrial districts. In homage to the ‘Finish Fetish’ movement of the ’60s and ’70s Couwenberg takes a great deal of time to create contrasting textures in his work, from surfaces sanded totally smooth to patches spackled on by pallet knife and run through with a broom to create deep ridges. The unique sense of order and co-relation in his shapes belies the intuitive processes that form them: often beginning only with a color palette in mind, tape is applied over swaths of paint only to be painted over again and again, from orange to black to white and back to black again, until it’s time for layers of tape to be peeled away to expose vivid shapes forms and lines beneath. The works that emerge are striking and full of instantaneous visual appeal.