Lisa Goesling
Spontaneous Combustion 8, black scratchboard, 7″ x 5″, 2016
Spontaneous Combustion 12, black scratchboard, 7″ x 5″, 2016
Spontaneous Combustion 14, black scratchboard, 7″ x 5″, 2016
Spontaneous Combustion 830, black scratchboard, 9-1/8″ x 25″, 2016
Moving On, black scratchboard, 14″ x 35″, 2016
Uprooted 2, black scratchboard, 18″ x 15″, 2016
Out With a Bang, black scratchboard with colored inks, 4′ x 1-1/5′, 2016
Artist Statement
Magnifying glass in hand, I capture nuances that simply can’t be seen by the naked eye. After studying my subject, I jump right in, spontaneously drawing fine lines with an X-ACTO knife into boards made of clay and India ink. Because I don’t plan what I create, I remain open to the same feeling of surprise as anyone else who happens upon my art.
My nature series Environmental Movement is influenced heavily by eco-psychology—the study of emotional connections between individuals and the natural world. My art produces the same sense of wonder, harmony, and timelessness that we experience when connecting with nature.
Spontaneous Combustion creates the illusion of three dimensions by layering line over line. I describe this abstract series as lyrical expressionism. My goal is to elicit the same feelings from the viewer that I get while watching my exquisite patterns emerge.
I escape to someplace magical when I create, and hope that my art has the power to create that magic for you.
About the Artist
Lisa Goesling grew up in the 1960s in Skokie, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. At age 12, she began taking art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she spent her weekends engaged in painting, drawing, and sculpture. After high school, she spent two years at Northern Illinois University, studying graphic design, then transferred to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, at the time the oldest art school in the city.
While attending school full-time, Lisa Goesling worked full-time, initially as public relations director for The Covenant Club of Illinois, where she photographed well-known dignitaries who frequented the club and wrote about important club functions. Responsible for curating shows at the club, she both selected and interviewed exhibiting artists. Following that job, Lisa Goesling worked from 1979 to 1981 at Rand McNally & Company, designing books, calendars, displays, and the like, and then, from 1981 to 1986, at Keroff & Rosenberg Advertising, where she was an art director. In 1986, Lisa Goesling opened her own graphic design business, In Sync Design, which she operated until 2006.
A cancer diagnosis in 2006 prompted Lisa Goesling’s decision to become a full-time artist. Introduced by a friend to black Scratchbords by Ampersand—hard boards covered in clay and a layer of black ink—she used the medium throughout treatment, grateful to have found a way to get lost in the details of drawing. She now calls it her medium of choice.
Lisa Goesling exhibits throughout the United States. In 2016, she had a solo exhibition, “Same Difference: Art NXT Level,” at 33 Contemporary Gallery/Zhou B Art Center, Chicago; was part of a two-person exhibition, “Human Nature,” at the Kavanagh Gallery, St. Charles, Illinois; and showed in The Pfister Hotel’s Pfister Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She also coordinated donations of more than 20 artists’ works to the “No Stomach for Cancer” silent auction and exhibition at The Pfister Hotel.
Lisa Goesling was awarded a March/April 2017 artist residency by The Studios of Key West; from 2010 to 2012, she was the artist-in-residence at The Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Some of her other awards are a feature in the September/October 2016 issue of ACS magazine; an interview for the April 2016 Art NEXT Level Projects Podcast with Sergio Gomez; and a 2012 feature on Comcast Cable TV’s Artist to Artist show. In addition, she received Ampersand Art Supply’s 2013 Ampersand Art Materials Award.
Several of Lisa Goesling’s artworks have been singled out for honors. Inside of an Iris appears on the front and back covers of the European edition of Colum McCann’s novel Transatlantic, and was honored in 2013 with an Award of Excellence and a Critic’s Choice Award by Jill Conner, an art critic and curator and the founder of AS/Artist Studios in New York City. Detail of a Grape Leaf appears on a number of Argentina’s Encendido Wine labels; and Pussy Willows won the 2014 Best of Show award in “Small Works in a Great Space” at the Mitchell Gallery in Annapolis, Maryland.
Artworks by Lisa Goesling can be found in public and private collections throughout the world.
Lisa Goesling at Saatchi Art (Search Lisa Goesling-Art.)
Lisa Goesling Demonstrates Scratchboard Use
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