meet

study
craft and folk art musuem
etsy craft night: kindle keepers  || 5 april
out of bounds: book assemblage workshop  ||15 april  




brentwood art center
the art of assemblage  || 18 april-23 may

 

biography
Lisa Occhipinti is an artist, photographer, author and instructor based in Venice CA. She creates multi-layered paintings, distinct book sculptures and poignant photos based upon books and vintage graphics. Her work is clean yet laden with visual information. Transforming and unearthing things rather than always creating anew, Lisa constructs her works so that they lend their own histories. Though her work is personal it speaks a universal language luring the viewer with quiet familiarities and a sensual palette.

She also photographs the work of fellow artists and designers for their marketing and documenting needs.

She has written and illustrated The Repurposed Library, a book on the subject of transforming books into new forms. Published by STC/Abrams, it is available wherever books are sold. Some of her Bookmobiles have been included in a recent book on paper arts titled Papercraft (Gestalten).

WIth a BA in Fine Art, Lisa has studied in France with Parsons School of Design and in Italy with The School of Visual Arts. She was a faculty member at the New Hampshire Institute of Art for five years. While there she coordinated and taught their first summer abroad program at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughn, Ireland. She has also taught at the Art Center at the Currier Museum of Art. She currently teaches at the Brentwood Art Center and the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.

She has won a full fellowship from the Clowes Fund for a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT and was awarded a residency at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock NY.

Her work is in private and corporate collections worldwide including, Hilton Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Prologue Films, J Crew, Star City, The Dana Farber Institute and Wheaton College Permanent Collection.


selected exhibitions
2011  Out of Sorts | Design Exchange Center  Toronto Canada
2011  Open Book | The Armory  Los Angeles CA
2010  Fall Group Show | Fresh Paint  Culver City CA
2010  Breaking the Spine | Rare Device  San Francisco CA
2009  Inside Out | School of the Museum of Fine Arts  Boston MA
2008  Inside Out | School of the Museum of Fine Arts  Boston MA
2005  Wish You Were Here | A.I.R. Gallery  New York, NY
2002  Artists and Poets | Carney Gallery, Regis College, Weston MA
2001  New Members Show | Copley Society of Art Boston MA
2001  Multiplicity and Reiteration | Tremont Gallery at the International Society  Boston MA
2001  Geometry and Art | Thoreau Gallery  Franklin Pierce College Rindge NH
2000  National Juried Exhibition | Bristol Art Musuem  Bristol RI
2000  New England/New Talent | Fitchburg Art Museum  Fitchburg MA
1999  Biennial 1999 | New Hampshire Institute of Art  Manchester NH
1999  National Juried Show | Montclair University  Montclair NJ


statement
Words, text, image and the notion of endless possibilities are what fuels my work. I am fascinated by the way books connect people, places and time, not just the author-reader relationship but the history of the book itself: who has owned it, who borrowed it, where it has traveled to. They are historical figures. Books contain a vigor and by reconfiguring them and presenting them in new forms I aim to give them a life beyond the shelf.

I am mesmerized by the object of a book. As a child I hated to read but adored books, loved the feel of them in my hands, the forms and colors that combined when stacked several high, the soft breath of turning pages, the pattern text makes on page.

When I re-form a book, it is essential to maintain its integrity, in all its worn patina, marginalia and otherwise proof of life. Where others may see a stain on a cover, I see a story. I utilize book pages and text as substrates and extract content from them while maintaining their mien for sculptures, paintings and photographs. Pages, spines and covers are stitched, mended and assembled into sculptural objects. As a painter, I use book pages as collage elements in my compositions and conversely use books as surfaces for mark-making and color. With transparency central as a means of depth and intrigue, I embrace the filminess of beeswax and encaustic as part of my layering system. As a photographer, I aim to capture the subtleties of books' physiques and attributes by harnessing a detail and enlarging it to ennoble their quietude. All of my work is intended to be read, not in a traditional sense, but by inference. I endeavor to tenderly reveal truths to the viewer that are simultaneously enigmatic and universal.