Lisa Neher

I want to paint images that move, that live, that reach beyond the moment fixed to the canvas.

When I began to paint, after not having touched a piece of artwork for years, I came to art with little formal training, and 30 years of making my way through the world. I had been working at the Embassy of France ‘s office of the National Center for Scientific Research where I translated two books dealing with Chance and Time. This introduction to systems theory made me question the nature of matter, the ambiguity of edges, and the role of perception in defining reality. Heady ideas!

One day, a studio guest asked me how I produced my work. While explaining that I often painted over old paintings that didn’t satisfy me, I realized that each previous painting had left parts of itself to participate in the newer painting. The new painting became an unexpected and unpredictable image incorporating elements of everything that came before. That, and the absence of discrete edges, work to convey the fluidity of nature and the ambiguity of form that systems theory proposes.