Lisa Bulawsky, 2015 Frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence, Opening Lecture

Widely recognized for her work in print media, St. Louis based artist Lisa Bulawsky’s practice spans installation, works on paper, and temporary public art. The artist exploits the inherent qualities of printmaking, including the uniqueness of the printed mark, to explore correlations between private life and civic space. In her site-specific installation in the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Bulawsky responds to the quality of light, the pull of the vertical, and the idea of the hollow square. Using scans of newsprint sheets that she has collected, used, and reused as backing paper while printing, her work covers the gallery wall. The exhibition highlights Bulawsky’s accidental archive and serves as a monument to the unexalted, the marginal, and the ahistorical. Multimedia aspects reinforce the artist’s interest in personal memory and shared experience.

Bulawsky received her B.A. in fine art from the University of California Santa Cruz, and her M.F.A. in printmaking from the University of Kansas. She has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally and is the recipient of several awards and residencies, including a National Endowment for the Arts individual artist fellowship. She is currently associate professor of printmaking and director of Island Press in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, the College and Graduate School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. Her work is in the collections of the Royal Academy of Fine Art, Belgium, and the House of Humour and Satire, Bulgaria, among others. Recent exhibitions include the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington D.C.; the International Print Center New York, Opole Contemporary Art Gallery, Poland; and the Dalarnas Museum, Sweden. Exhibit through May 30. Hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10 am-4 pm; Saturday 1-5 pm.