Lisa Rowland

A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Lisa holds a B.A. from Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. In addition to Local Colour Gallery she shows her work at the St. John USVI Artist’s Association Gallery, The Mango Gallery in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and The Galleria del Mar in Cruz Bay, St. John USVI. She has been a member of the Bailey Gallerie and shows in several restaurants in Little Rock. Her work hangs in collections in Great Britain and across the United States.

Lisa studied art under Ulysses Desportes in Virginia, German Impressionist Guido Frick, portraitist Betty Dortch McMath, and many others, and continues evolving her art in workshops at the University of Arkansas and the Arkansas Arts Center. She was a model-maker for the Cromwell Architecture Firm where she worked from blueprints creating architectural sculptures of UALR, downtown Little Rock, Maumelle New Town, and other buildings around the state.

Lisa uses a lot of high-energy color in her paintings, many of which include her favorite subject: water. The Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Arkansas River, and Lake Catherine are favorite subjects in paintings. “Whether or not I begin a painting with water in mind,” she says, “it usually appears somewhere on the canvas. Even my abstracts can be considered waterscapes.” Another favorite subject is the “to-go cup” which incorporates bright colors set against blue skies and jewel-tone waters.

The mother of four children, three dogs, two cats, and a granddaughter, Lisa is never bored — “There aren’t enough hours in the day,” she says, and when not painting is involved in knitting, designing needlepoint, making miniatures for dollhouses, gardening, quilting — anything creative. She is also a sculptor using giant bamboo/polyurethane/found objects influenced by an extended stay in Africa. The family structures she observed there were life-changing and inspired her “Family Ties – Habari/Mwengi” series.