Text Box: Lisa Gillham is a writer and artist. She has exhibited and sold artwork in New York City, Atlanta, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, among other venues. Her early artwork was painting and drawing which developed into collage/mixed media work during the 1980’s and ‘90’s. Since 2001 she has been working primarily in mosaic, collage and assemblage. She has published articles in regional and national magazines, and has a book under contract, due out in 2008. She also has experience in graphic design and illustration, and often uses her experience in writing, graphic design and public relations in the service of community development and cultural heritage.

 Lisa Gillham - Home studio
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Artist Statement

Since returning home to my family's Victorian home in Latonia, my work has focused on the spirit and memory of place.  My work is often colored by echoes or ghosts of the past, and I am quite drawn to the possibilities of moving back and forth in time - of holes in the fabric of time.  For me, the dead are as present as the living in any daily scene and the past as real as the now.  I think that weaving and burying stories in visual art is one way to pursue these concepts.

 

I'm excited by the eccentric, heavy patterning seen in folk art, Victorian era decor, and Gothic architecture.  Heavy carving, too many patterns, and a hint of other worldly mystery represented by some sinister curio draws me in.  I love a glut of symbolist clutter and disparate junk.  This kind of bizarre combination of crazy colors and textures, unexpected materials and weird objects often appears in shamanic and religious art created by indigenous people of old Europe, African-Caribbean islands, Australia -- even Tibet.  I draw inspiration from Irish roadside altars, voodoo ceremonial art, Mexican shrines, Gypsy grave art, alchemical symbolism and even old Catholic grottos.  For me these are all tools for expressing the garbage pile Sacredness of the Great Goddess, whose eternal presence I am usually attempting to evoke in my work.
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