LISA SANDITZ
30 October 2019 (New Orleans, LA) JONATHAN FERRARA GALLERY is proud to announce, Deep Woods, the premiere solo exhibition of Hudson Valley-based artist Lisa Sanditz. In this exhibition, the artist explores the complex relationship between humans and the natural landscape – creating a visual commentary on the social and environmental impact of human interference with nature. Her work is an exploration into the ways in which humans have altered environmental landscapes and have manufactured goods (i.e. bug spray, sunscreen) in an attempt to control and exist comfortably within nature and offers up a critique on the ramifications of such alterations. The exhibition will be on view from 30 October through 13 December 2019 with an opening reception coinciding with the Arts District of New Orleans’ (ADNO) First Saturday Gallery Openings on Saturday, 2 November from 6-9 pm. A second reception will be held from 6-9 pm on 7 December 2019.
The artist discusses the inspiration behind Deep Woods…
Preliminary preparations for experiencing nature begin with the ritualistic slathering of sunscreen and bug spray. Humans have a curious relationship to nature: fetishizing it, respecting it, controlling it and destroying it.
Deep Woods is a show named for a bug spray but also asks questions about the depth of our interface with the natural world. The ceramics and paintings are inspired by personal interactions with people and places in the natural world. The ceramic pieces are functional flower vases and drinking vessels that are facsimiles of the things we use to insulate our body against external and internal discomfort: bug spray, sunscreen and alcohol. I think of these bottles as future fossils. They are made to look like they have been excavated from a landfill. Their surfaces sport a sunbaked patina and are experiencing a second growth as flora has begun to overtake the calcified surfaces of their former plastic armor.
The paintings address these contradictions as well. The grid and row of small color-saturated paintings are displayed sequentially—the result of a daily painting practice this summer. They are unabashedly dazzling, romantic color studies of places near my home in the Hudson Valley, NY and Cape Cod, MA. Two locations that for 150 years have inspired romantic, patriotic and colonialist landscape paintings.
Other paintings take a more sinister turn. “Palisades” considers the microplastics in our water supply through small abrasions on the painting's surface that reveal layers of color below. This act is a painterly consideration of the pollutants that lay below the surface and are not readily available to the human eye. The majority of this painting depicts the Hudson River viewshed, which is executed in a nearly toxic red and green glow. “Ghost Fox,” was painted after recently seeing a roadkill fox kit on a summer’s eve drive home. “Septuagenarian Skinny Dippers,” depicts an older carefree couple, swimming naked with no physical shield from the environment. Their age liberates them from the vanity of youth, as well as from the concerns of water quality in the future. “Suburban Basement Snakes” was made after seeing my childhood neighbor’s mancave—a safe haven for seven exotic snakes, guarded by a lifetime of rock-n-roll collectibles. This show brings together figurative and landscape-based artwork, as a continuation of my investigation of the social and environmental impact of our built environment through the endlessly wily chromatic possibilities of painting and ceramics.
LISA SANDITZ was born 1973 in St. Louis, MO. In 1994 she studied at the Studio Art Center International in Florence, Italy. In 1995 she received her BA from Macalester College, St. Paul, MN and in 2001 graduated with an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. In 2005 she was selected by Creative Time and United Technologies to participate in an outdoor mural project where three commissioned artists, also including Alex Katz and Gary Hume, have painted site-specific paintings to be repainted on billboards in lower Manhattan. She is a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient and currently lives and works in New York.
For more information, press or sales inquiries please contact Gallery Director Matthew Weldon Showman at 504.343.6827 or matthew@jonathanferraragallery.com. Please join the conversation with JFG on Facebook (@JonathanFerraraGallery), Twitter (@JFerraraGallery), and Instagram (@JonathanFerraraGallery) via the hashtags: #LisaSanditz, #JonathanFerraraGallery and #ArtsDistrictNewOrleans.