LISA TARPLEE
MIXED MEDIA ART
01 meet lisa
Lisa draws inspiration for art from life and faith. As she wrestles with concepts of God, the church, suffering, and joy, she works it out with torn paper, hymns, Scripture, encaustic paints and other media. Her mixed media art reflects her personal faith journey of lament, joy, and hope, and beauty.
Her work often stands as a visual parable and prayer. As she composes each piece, she converses with the Lord, her Creator, in prayer and meditation. The final work invites the viewer to join into a conversation of faith and life.
Her chosen medium includes scrap paper, sticks, string, cardboard, and other items that often get tossed away or overlooked. In this, she reflects the One who makes all things beautiful as she remembers the torn and broken in her life and those around her. The Lord does indeed take the smallest, most insignificant things in this world and make them grand in His.
Lisa’s hope is that each viewer’s faith will be questioned and deepened, strengthened and encouraged, just as her own faith is stretched and deepened during the process of creating.
Lisa has been using encaustic medium since 2017. Encaustic medium is made up of beeswax and damar resin. She finds the process of heating it up, applying it, setting it with heat, and continuing to build up layers soothing and meditative. Encaustic also lends itself to adding other elements of collage, a form of expression that she has always been drawn to.
Often, Lisa will lay down old hymns, writings, and paper scraps as her foundation. Then she will apply wax in layers. At times she will carve into the wax with clay tools to reveal the color hidden underneath. The versatility of encaustic gives her many ways that she can create whimsical pieces.