Lisa Beernsten

Lisa Beernsten, lives and plants (and also works in ceramics) with her husband, fellow artist, Tony Spiers in Graton, California. Lisa received her MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1991, and her BFA from California College of Arts & Crafts(now known as CCA) in 1983. Lisa has been an adjunct art instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College for over 10 years, where she teaches classes in color, painting and drawing.

Lisa’s work proceeds from one piece to the next in response to the art making process itself, more than it being driven by subject matter or narrative. Her underlying inspiration goes back to nature, and specifically the botanical world as an endless source of fascination. Whether, they be plants in the wild, in her garden, or indoor plants– plant forms and parts (whether abstracted or more realistic), frequently emerge. She is interested in the human desire to see and create pattern. Lisa likes to weave this regularity together with the more random organic qualities of plants. She is interested in forms that recur different scales from the microscopic to the immense and the scientific building blocks of nature. She would like for her paintings to have both a sense of mystery and beauty.