"There are also several haunting abstracts I liked, especially...Lisa Creed's "Scroll: Sail Away," which pays homage to some Eqyptian ancestor..."
Blue Greenberg, art review for The Durham Herald Sun, Durham, NC
"I think the new work is very exciting. There is a whimsical quality, and a tactile sensibility that links Creed with Klee, Cy Twombly, Antonio Tapies, and even Miro. I think the worked surfaces and expressive scrawling is so lively and inspired."
Carol Heft, Adjunct Professor of Art, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA
“Abstraction is not the most popular artistic idea today, but there were several artists who find their voice through abstract compositions. One especially fine painting is Lisa Creed's "In the Works."
Blue Greenberg, art review for The Durham Herald Sun, Durham, NC
"I am the proud owner of several Lisa Creed paintings and have followed her developing talent with keen interest over many years. Her most recent Abstract series is - hands down - the most imaginative, energetic and sophisticated oeuvre to date. The works are extraordinary, demonstrating the artist's command of color, depth, line and balance; they are a testimony to unity and harmony. Moreover, like much of Lisa's work, these paintings reflect the sensitivity and acuity of her spirit, brilliantly articulating a fundamental yearning for goodness, self-awareness, a sense of inner peace....and hope for a world restored."
Mark Thomas Higgins, Business owner and art collector Durham, NC
In her paintings of the sea and sky, artist Lisa Creed seeks “to honor the numinous that surrounds us.” Although she now resides in North Carolina, Creed grew up spending summers on the coast of Maine and she returns each year to spend time at her family’s property in Surry. “I feel like I have absorbed the very coast that I grew up on into my bones,” she says.
It is from this deeply rooted sense of place that she draws inspiration for her lyrical, atmospheric images. Serving as visual testaments of her devotion to nature’s spiritualism, Creed’s semi-abstract paintings of the Maine shore convey her appreciation for the elemental and the infinite. “I may paint in the front field or in my studio,” she says, “but it is my memory that pours out onto the surface. It is that sense of wonder that I had as a kid and still have today. It is the power of the sky, sea, and land, and the shifting weather that intrigues me.”
In painting after painting, Creed expresses her appreciation for the inimitable light and air of the Maine coast. It is her only landscape subject—she also paints abstractions—and her passionate dedication to the theme is revealed in the remarkable range she derives from the subject. The vast skies and endless seas are as seemingly various as nature’s own creations. Devoid of human presence or man-made structures, her coastal paintings celebrate the transitory, ever-shifting nature of weather, atmosphere, and light. In works such as On the Wing, sweeping veils of shimmering color define the surface of the water and give form to the cloud-filled sky. “It is without fail that various people will comment that my work has northern light in it,” says Creed. “They recognize that it is New England light, Maine light. It is impossible for me to not have that light I love in my work.”
Lisa Creed received a BA in art and English from Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in visual design from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Her paintings are in many private and corporate collections, and she has exhibited her work in numerous exhibitions throughout the eastern United States. In Maine, she is represented by Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth.
Suzette McAvoy from The Canvas issue of Maine Home+Design
"...Lisa Creed abandons her color field abstractions for "Maine Sea and Sky" paintings. Seascapes of large cloud-filled horizons hovering over slim slivers of sea, they are nearly as minimal as Rothko, but painted with a lyric, Romantic feeling in a soft pastel palette. An homage to here childhood summering place, Newbury Neck, they honor the timelessness of its open spaces and changing weathers. These paintings deeply absorb their fresh subject. Let's see where this new direction goes."
Michele Natale, art reviewer for The News and Observer, Raleigh, NC
"Red is a tough color to emphasize in an entire exhibition, but, Lisa Creed, whose artistic and technical expertise are evident in each canvas, has done just that. She applies here reds in layers and then scrapes and scratches through them, exposing architectural forms as if the have been found on and archeological dig.
In her gallery statement, she talks about time spent in Taos, NM, and how the desert with its light and open spaces influenced her. Indeed the sun's ascent and descent is always marked by a blazing sky, and it is probably that intensity that fuels the color in her paintings.
The fault for me lies not in the use of hot colors, but in their profusion. If you can handle a red room, you will love this work. If you cannot, you will turn away, feeling their intensity in an assault on your senses"
Blue Greenberg, art reviewer for The Herald-Sun, Durham, NC February 2003
"Creed's collection, "Light Returns,"...is made up almost entirely of red hues except for the occasional burst of yellow, orange and blue.
Creed layers squares of paint over the canvas in an asymmetric fashion. Scraping at the surface with tools, thin streams or blocks of colors emerge. Some of the pieces seem to be photos taken from an airplane overlooking a farm field. Others pictures make the shapes of abstract cityscapes."
Molly McGinn, art reviewer for The News and Record, High Point, NC 2001
"The timeless realm of human experience fuses with the with the psychological space of Lisa Creed's densely textured new paintings. Archetypal shapes emerge and dissolve through multiple layerings. These are the diaristic meditations of Lisa's ongoing painterly dialogue. Weaving together her internal and external worlds, Lisa forms surfaces rich with history that seduce the viewer into states between waking and dreaming."
Sarah Walker, painter Clark University, Worchester, MA 1996
"Bear in mind that she is a poet as well as a painter, that a boat is a "vehicle" as well as a "shape". As a vehicle, it may transport you, while, at the same time, it confronts you as a shape. Lisa's titles include four nouns: soul, virgin, rest, shrine. These nouns invite us to engage in verbs of movement.
It is easy, in taking titles as a means of entry into a visual work, to digress from the image itself. These paintings abhor any such separation. Lisa uses painterly applications of media and vivid color to link the indentifiable (say, a boat) with its filed so that the two are inseparable.
On painting, with its more determined line, its distinction of figure and ground, stands alone. This painting recalls work I saw back in 1993 when I visited Lisa's studio. In other paintings shown here, color brings corporeality to the object freed from its "reality" in order to facilitate imaginary travel. In Emerging Goddess, line brings corporeality to the mythic woman."
Ryland W. Greene, Provost and Art Professor, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA 1996
"Creed employs a symbolic vocabulary of forms , more personal than the pictograms on Magdalenian cave walls and more private thatn archetypal imagery, though partaking of the nature of both. Her art comes straight from the inner landscape of a deeper and older Slefe, one who inhabits the bone-cloistered space just behind the homo sapiens forebrain. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of these paintings is that this ancient being who collaborates in their creation not only has roots in our collective past, but remains distinctly Lisa Creed.
Jodie Forrest, author and astrologer, Chapel Hill, NC 1994
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"There are also several haunting abstracts I liked, especially...Lisa Creed's "Scroll: Sail Away," which pays homage to some Eqyptian ancestor..."
Blue Greenberg, art review for The Durham Herald Sun, Durham, NC
"I think the new work is very exciting. There is a whimsical quality, and a tactile sensibility that links Creed with Klee, Cy Twombly, Antonio Tapies, and even Miro. I think the worked surfaces and expressive scrawling is so lively and inspired."
Carol Heft, Adjunct Professor of Art, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA
“Abstraction is not the most popular artistic idea today, but there were several artists who find their voice through abstract compositions. One especially fine painting is Lisa Creed's "In the Works."
Blue Greenberg, art review for The Durham Herald Sun, Durham, NC
"I am the proud owner of several Lisa Creed paintings and have followed her developing talent with keen interest over many years. Her most recent Abstract series is - hands down - the most imaginative, energetic and sophisticated oeuvre to date. The works are extraordinary, demonstrating the artist's command of color, depth, line and balance; they are a testimony to unity and harmony. Moreover, like much of Lisa's work, these paintings reflect the sensitivity and acuity of her spirit, brilliantly articulating a fundamental yearning for goodness, self-awareness, a sense of inner peace....and hope for a world restored."
Mark Thomas Higgins, Business owner and art collector Durham, NC
In her paintings of the sea and sky, artist Lisa Creed seeks “to honor the numinous that surrounds us.” Although she now resides in North Carolina, Creed grew up spending summers on the coast of Maine and she returns each year to spend time at her family’s property in Surry. “I feel like I have absorbed the very coast that I grew up on into my bones,” she says.
It is from this deeply rooted sense of place that she draws inspiration for her lyrical, atmospheric images. Serving as visual testaments of her devotion to nature’s spiritualism, Creed’s semi-abstract paintings of the Maine shore convey her appreciation for the elemental and the infinite. “I may paint in the front field or in my studio,” she says, “but it is my memory that pours out onto the surface. It is that sense of wonder that I had as a kid and still have today. It is the power of the sky, sea, and land, and the shifting weather that intrigues me.”
In painting after painting, Creed expresses her appreciation for the inimitable light and air of the Maine coast. It is her only landscape subject—she also paints abstractions—and her passionate dedication to the theme is revealed in the remarkable range she derives from the subject. The vast skies and endless seas are as seemingly various as nature’s own creations. Devoid of human presence or man-made structures, her coastal paintings celebrate the transitory, ever-shifting nature of weather, atmosphere, and light. In works such as On the Wing, sweeping veils of shimmering color define the surface of the water and give form to the cloud-filled sky. “It is without fail that various people will comment that my work has northern light in it,” says Creed. “They recognize that it is New England light, Maine light. It is impossible for me to not have that light I love in my work.”
Lisa Creed received a BA in art and English from Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in visual design from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Her paintings are in many private and corporate collections, and she has exhibited her work in numerous exhibitions throughout the eastern United States. In Maine, she is represented by Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth.
Suzette McAvoy from The Canvas issue of Maine Home+Design
"...Lisa Creed abandons her color field abstractions for "Maine Sea and Sky" paintings. Seascapes of large cloud-filled horizons hovering over slim slivers of sea, they are nearly as minimal as Rothko, but painted with a lyric, Romantic feeling in a soft pastel palette. An homage to here childhood summering place, Newbury Neck, they honor the timelessness of its open spaces and changing weathers. These paintings deeply absorb their fresh subject. Let's see where this new direction goes."
Michele Natale, art reviewer for The News and Observer, Raleigh, NC
"Red is a tough color to emphasize in an entire exhibition, but, Lisa Creed, whose artistic and technical expertise are evident in each canvas, has done just that. She applies here reds in layers and then scrapes and scratches through them, exposing architectural forms as if the have been found on and archeological dig.
In her gallery statement, she talks about time spent in Taos, NM, and how the desert with its light and open spaces influenced her. Indeed the sun's ascent and descent is always marked by a blazing sky, and it is probably that intensity that fuels the color in her paintings.
The fault for me lies not in the use of hot colors, but in their profusion. If you can handle a red room, you will love this work. If you cannot, you will turn away, feeling their intensity in an assault on your senses"
Blue Greenberg, art reviewer for The Herald-Sun, Durham, NC February 2003
"Creed's collection, "Light Returns,"...is made up almost entirely of red hues except for the occasional burst of yellow, orange and blue.
Creed layers squares of paint over the canvas in an asymmetric fashion. Scraping at the surface with tools, thin streams or blocks of colors emerge. Some of the pieces seem to be photos taken from an airplane overlooking a farm field. Others pictures make the shapes of abstract cityscapes."
Molly McGinn, art reviewer for The News and Record, High Point, NC 2001
"The timeless realm of human experience fuses with the with the psychological space of Lisa Creed's densely textured new paintings. Archetypal shapes emerge and dissolve through multiple layerings. These are the diaristic meditations of Lisa's ongoing painterly dialogue. Weaving together her internal and external worlds, Lisa forms surfaces rich with history that seduce the viewer into states between waking and dreaming."
Sarah Walker, painter Clark University, Worchester, MA 1996
"Bear in mind that she is a poet as well as a painter, that a boat is a "vehicle" as well as a "shape". As a vehicle, it may transport you, while, at the same time, it confronts you as a shape. Lisa's titles include four nouns: soul, virgin, rest, shrine. These nouns invite us to engage in verbs of movement.
It is easy, in taking titles as a means of entry into a visual work, to digress from the image itself. These paintings abhor any such separation. Lisa uses painterly applications of media and vivid color to link the indentifiable (say, a boat) with its filed so that the two are inseparable.
On painting, with its more determined line, its distinction of figure and ground, stands alone. This painting recalls work I saw back in 1993 when I visited Lisa's studio. In other paintings shown here, color brings corporeality to the object freed from its "reality" in order to facilitate imaginary travel. In Emerging Goddess, line brings corporeality to the mythic woman."
Ryland W. Greene, Provost and Art Professor, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA 1996
"Creed employs a symbolic vocabulary of forms , more personal than the pictograms on Magdalenian cave walls and more private thatn archetypal imagery, though partaking of the nature of both. Her art comes straight from the inner landscape of a deeper and older Slefe, one who inhabits the bone-cloistered space just behind the homo sapiens forebrain. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of these paintings is that this ancient being who collaborates in their creation not only has roots in our collective past, but remains distinctly Lisa Creed.
Jodie Forrest, author and astrologer, Chapel Hill, NC 1994
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