Lisa M. Shimko’s paintings reveal the influences of a sundry of research topics, old
memories and daydreaming.
Lisa enjoyed her childhood in York County, Pennsylvania collecting rocks and
exploring the terrain of forests and farms. Colors, forms, and textures from nature and
the simple designs of Pennsylvania German folk art infused the foundation of her
artistic aesthetic.
In 1994, Lisa earned a BFA in Painting with a minor in Art Therapy from the University
of the Arts in Philadelphia. The urban landscapes of the northeast supplied a different
kind of nature for her to explore– architecture, social issues, history and all the
music in between. Hilton Head Island, South Carolina became Lisa’s home in 2000 and
its sub-tropical estuaries added a new chapter to her aesthetic book.
Childhood memories of hills, forests and fields, northeastern cities and the southern
coast compel an exploration of environmental issues. The beauty of surroundings
intertwines with topics ranging from endangered animals, climate change to
anthropology, all osmosing into her art.
Aspiring to reflect and feed the varied natures of the muses and parts of the brain, Lisa’s painting style ranges from multi-colored painterly abstracts to honed animals imbued with an allegorical curiosity.
Charleston, South Carolina was Lisa’s home for 12 years and recently she relocated to the Appalachian foothills of Greenville, South Carolina where new explorations have begun.
Lisa's art still has a home in Charleston at Mitchell Hill Gallery.
"As a composer, I believe that music has the power to inspire a renewal of human consciousness, culture, and politics. And yet I refuse to make political art. More often than not political art fails as politics, and all too often it fails as art. To reach its fullest power, to be most moving and most fully useful to us, art must be itself."
~John Luther Adams