Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern is an American figurative artist living and working in the New York metropolitan area. Her work has been shown in galleries and museums, including the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, the Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago, New Jersey State Museum, Kean University Galleries, and the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. She is a recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship for 2022. Her work has been featured in Fine Art Connoisseur, Poets and Artists, and Studio Visit Magazines. Lisa holds a BFA from Parsons The School for Design and MFA from New Jersey City University.
Statement:
I am a figurative artist creating artwork about feminine identity, experiences, and memories. I am mainly known for my oil paintings but most recently have experimented with printmaking and three-dimensional textile-based works. I am inspired by art history, particularly of the Baroque and Rococo periods, as well as contemporary motifs, fashion trends, and themes from technology and popular culture. I re-contextualize familiar images to evoke a new interpretation, narrative, or meaning. Contrasts between the familiar and unfamiliar ask the viewer to reflect on things they know or have seen, and how they can think about a memory in a different way.
I am always making connections between past and present, processing my own experiences by conceptualizing and creating the work. Once my relationship to the subject matter is determined, I consider what visual material to present and their dramatic possibilities, and what the look and “feel” of the overall work will be. Composition, symbolic references, gestures of the images, and media are all carefully considered. Content manifests in different ways, from ironic or humorous, to descriptive of personal narrative, or visually decadent and pleasing for its own sake.
My viewer is invited to partake in the pleasure of discovering familiar themes and new meaning through the work, and the satisfaction of completing their part of the meaning’s circuit.