PICTURES BETWEEN DEPTH AND SOUND
On the painting by Lisa Lyskava
It is impossible to write about Lisa Lyskava's paintings without also commenting on the artist's personality, and this is where self-discipline is required if one does not want to get bogged down in detail. Lisa Lyskava is full of ideas and full of energy. A look at her vita gives an idea of the fascination she has for the phenomenon of the new, which needs to be discovered. There are the written word and the music, the theater and the moving image of the film, and finally there is the painting.
Driven by the urge to explore, to try and to expand horizons of experience, she plunges into the adventure of a new experience with every single one of her pictures. A restless mind like that of Lisa Lyskavas cannot be content to follow the paths she has already trodden. It is forbidden to classify them in one of the usual categories of art.
Reality is certainly also an inspiration for her, but she is never depicted. The idea for the picture only develops in dialogue with the painting ground and color. Multi-layered applications of paint, lines and shapes that overlap one another, or collaged and occasionally repainted elements made of cardboard, paper or fabric are evidence of the individual development steps or, more appropriately: stages of maturity on the way to completion.
She is not satisfied with the specifications of the screen. She adds the dimension of depth to the surface, and hearing to that of seeing. Sometimes with a fine brushstroke, sometimes with a strong application of paint, she sets accents and gives impulses that relate to each other and condense into a rhythmically pulsating whole. Moving, vibrant spaces of color and light open up between the lines. The viewer enters the border area of his perception. Not dissimilar to Marc Tobey's “rhythm paintings”, everything seems to be in motion and full of sound
For all the explosion of colors, for all the play with shapes, lines and surfaces, Lisa Lyskava's works are neither arbitrary nor accidental in the form of images. The interplay of light and shadow, of temperament and restraint, of surface and depth, is the desired result of a well thought-out staging. She paints because painting has become another form of expression for her. ...colors that show sensuality, the brushstroke that reveals temperament and strength, compositions that show the love for music...
It would be an abridged view of her work if one did not also take a look at the pictures that show the thoughtful, contemporary artist. The dominance of color and the interplay of line and space remain. However, unlike there, where carefree colors determine the picture, an atmosphere of introverted calm and meditative stillness is created here. …….
For the artist, each of her works is like a living being. It has a soul and, as she says herself, it needs to breathe. If he lacks the breathing air, it can happen that she takes parts of the painting ground that she has already worked on, which she saves in order to work them into other pictures years later. In this way, material-image-like collages are created, which make it particularly clear that Lisa Lyskava's pictures are not translations of existing experiences, but rather the creation of experiences that expressly did not exist beforehand.
In contrast to the symphonic compositions of color and brushstrokes, the more recent, almost monochrome pictures appear calm and meditative. And yet, the more intensely one looks, the more these canvases begin to come to life. The sensitive coloring of the surface hides secrets. At a deeper level of paint application something happens that we can neither define nor localize, but which we nevertheless feel exists.
Even if the arc between an outburst of temper in the form of a picture and the expression of a critical examination of the times may be wide, Lisa Lyskava's work presents itself as a homogeneous whole. Lisa Lyskava is at peace with herself and her art, and this is precisely what gives her credibility.
Thomas Hengstenberg, Unna, March 17, 1996
