Lisa Solar, Visual Artist Celebrates Solo Show at The Saw Room Gallery

Visual artist Lisa Solar celebrates an upcoming solo show at the Saw Room in The Alley Gallery, July 15 - Aug. 16, opening receptions Saturday, July 22, 5-8 p.m., and August 5, 5-8 p.m.

In this interview we talk about the body of work on display in her show "The Game" which includes an installation of works in progress that involve Solar's color practice. The Saw Room Gallery offers an intimate space to view numerous new works by Solar, curated by Darren Oberto and Ross Martens of The Alley Gallery. 

From the Saw Room website: This current body of work by Lisa Solar reflects her interest in the game of Formal Painting.  Each piece represents a challenge to pinpoint the precise moment in which the relationship between dissonance and harmony becomes unstable, using the least number of moves.  The works can be considered a record of sequences, and rely on a formulaic set of opening moves.  As in chess, a few reliable restrictions or combinations have the potential to propagate into infinite diverging results. See more at  thesawroom.com

From LisaSolar.com

In the current body of work I am exploring color relationships via forms that hover between biomorphic and geometric. Within the stricture of a handful of of typical moves (gradient color, pulsing polygons and hallucinogenic face arrangements) I feel for the line between dissonance and harmony and push and pull colors back and forth over it.

My method of working is handed down from the Bauhaus school of color theory and leans heavily on making empirical choices and continually reacting to them. Through the duration of each work, I explore the link between emotive and logical response, and then advance or retreat accordingly.

Formal influences are many and always in flux. Jessica Stockholder’s work remains a constant bellwether as does Sonia Delaunay and of course, Albers (both Anni and Josef). 

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"The Lisa D Show" is a podcast celebrating creatives, featuring 20-minute, unedited conversations that mimic the live-radio vibe, very low tech on purpose. Reach out to host Lisa Degliantoni at thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

 

Jessica Powers, the Author, Publisher and Superhero

Jessica (J.L.) Power's career follows an incredibly circuitous route from a PhD program in African History to launching her own publishing company to writing a YA novel with her brother Matt (M.A. Powers), Broken Circle, which will be published by Akashic Books October 2017.

This interview focuses on how Jessica (pen name J.L. Powers) weaves together her numerous talents and passions to become an award-winning author and publisher.

Below are Matt and Jessica at this year's ALA Conference in Chicago, dressed as superhero's in celebration of their debut YA Novel.

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From Akashic Books

J.L. POWERS is the award-winning author of three young adult novels, The Confessional, This Thing Called the Future, and Amina. She is also the editor of two collections of essays and author of a picture book, Colors of the Wind. She works as an editor/publicist for Cinco Puntos Press, and is founder and editor of the online blog, The Pirate Tree: Social Justice and Children’s Literature. She teaches creative writing, literature, and composition at Skyline College in California’s Bay Area, served as a jurist for the 2014 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and is launching Catalyst Press in 2017 to publish African writers. Broken Circle is her first novel written with her brother, M.A. Powers.

"The Lisa D Show" is a podcast celebrating creatives, featuring 20-minute, unedited conversations that mimic the live-radio vibe, very low tech on purpose.