Lisa Wicka
Focus I, 2017, 5”x 8 x 3.5” Plexi, enamel, vinyl, Prismacolor, paper, silkscreen, wood with digital photography (in viewfinder).
“My use of color teeters somewhere in-between actual and what I imagine it to be.”
Lisa Wicka is an artist living and working in Green Bay, Wisconsin (USA). Her approach to color is responsive and her approach to printmaking is both controlled and spontaneous. Lisa’s mixed media work is created with a combination of silkscreen, relief and monoprint printmaking techniques. She often works in combination with paint, collaged paper, and sculptural elements. Currently, Lisa is working on a series that responds to the Covid-19 pandemic focusing on the use of texture in combination with coping language.
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
Colors and shapes help me understand my surroundings and my existence within them. Sometimes this means my color choices reflect the space I am in (sunsets, architecture, signage, etc..) as a way for me to digest my surroundings and find my ground. Other times, I find comfort in filtering my surrounding through my own experiences, where for example, a pattern from the 60’s through my own lens might shift to the 90’s palette of my youth in order for me to get closer to it.
These two approaches can co-exist and in those moments my use of color teeters somewhere in-between actual and what I imagine it to be. These in-betweens are where I like my work to exist, acknowledging how our past experiences continually affect our present.
“I have learned planning can only get me so far and there is a freshness only letting go can bring to my work.”
Focus V, 2017, 12” x 8 x 3.5” Plexi, enamel, vinyl, Prismacolor, paper, silkscreen, wood with digital photography (in viewfinder).
Along the Way X, 2019, 10.5" x 16" x 2.5" mixed media on wood panel.
Where do you reside between technical and intuitive in your work as an artist using color?
I like to have control throughout my art-making process, part of that control is planning for spontaneity, which sounds ridiculous. Over the years I have learned planning can only get me so far and there is a freshness only letting go can bring to my work.
I keep the more controlled part of me at the beginning of my practice; like developing my patterns, basic shapes, etc. Once that is worked out, I allow myself to work more intuitively with color and print my matrices in unexpected ways. I essentially create a library of colors and patterns that then become building blocks in the next stages of my work.
What would your work be without color?
I am currently working on some mostly white work, and it has felt uncomfortable and vulnerable. When my work has color, especially the collaged pieces, I feel I am constructing something physical.
Without those colors, I feel as if I do not have as much distance between my mind and my hand and the work reflects this struggle. This is intentional for the current body of work I am referring to, but it does make me realize how much I rely on color as a part of my visual language.
Along the Way IX, 2019, 19" x 23" x 2.5" mixed media on wood panel.