About Lisa Winika

Lisa Winika is a self-taught artist who expresses her vision through diverse media and genre: drawing, painting, sculpting, photography, collage, and assemblage, abstract, surreal, conceptual, and visionary.

 

Lisa is a polymath who brings a broad range of experience to  bear on her art: a lifetime of spiritual seeking, 35 years of meditative practice and mystical experience; studies in Vedanta, healing, pathology, biology, quantum physics, and literature; work with the mentally ill and physically frail; travels in India; love of nature, gardening, hiking, kayaking, exploration of abandoned places; her intellect, wit, suffering, passion, joy, and Love.

 

Lisa started to work as an artist later in life after struggling through several years of personal tragedy, during which she said that art was the only thing that made sense.  Artistic expression became a spiritual imperative. With new found purpose she built her controversial Blue Studio in the historic district of Rhinebeck, learning and inventing carpentry skills along the way. The whimsical space, always an evolving work of art in itself,  is made largely from reclaimed materials and all variety of found objects used in unexpected ways. In this same way she explores her art, experimenting, inventing, discovering. Lisa’s work has been in numerous regional shows and is held in private collections in the U.S. and Europe.

 

In Her Own Words

"Art is a mystery to me. The impulse to create, the process of creation, the response to the created, all seem to involve both natural compulsions and laws, as well as a manifestation of a deep and ineffable force. The longing to understand and be part of this mystery is the motive of my work. 

 

My own art is, stunningly, no less a mystery to me than that of any other artist.  I find I have little urge to control and manipulate as I create. Rather, the urge is to listen, to look, to deeply understand something beyond myself that has its own life and is born through me, rather than by me. And, while my personal experiences and interests certainly inform the work, I don't seem to have much to do with what's been created, and I find myself continually surprised by the results.

 

As a lifelong spiritual seeker and practicing interfaith minister, I have plumbed the questions of spirit, agape, and communion with the divine. The color on a pallet, the relationship of images, forms, and textures, the communication with various media, and the process of creation, seem no less a numinous affair.

 

The art that comes through me is ultimately an act of devotion."