About lisa
Lisa Chandler is a contemporary history painter - she looks closely at our moment in time and explores such issues as gentrification, migration, social and economic injustice, climate change and the Covid pandemic.
Chandler employs her love of painting to portray how these events affect individuals and communities. Her paintings tell stories of loss, isolation, grief and exhaustion, but they also offer hope - showing how people unite together and support each other in difficult times.
Chandler holds an MFA (Hons) from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland. Since 2012 she has held 12 solo exhibitions, and been selected for numerous group shows including ‘Cruel City’ at The Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand and the ‘International Art Survey’ Beijing, China. She has been a finalist in a number of major New Zealand art awards including the National Contemporary Art Award (2015), the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award (2018, 2015) and the Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award (2015, 2014 and 2012). International artist residencies have included: Instinc, Singapore; Red Gate Residency, Beijing, and the Leipzig International Art Programme, Germany.
In 2016, following her four-month residency in Leipzig, Chandler secured a permanent studio at the well known Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei art hub. From 2017 - 2019 Chandler worked in the Spinnerei every New Zealand winter developing a major body of work titled The Dividing Line. The Dividing Line was first exhibited in Leipzig in 2018. Since then it has been exhibited at The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson 2019; the Aigantighe Public Art Gallery, Timaru 2019; Expressions Whirinaki Art Center, Upper Hutt 2020; and Tauranga Public Art Gallery in 2021.
Based in New Zealand year round from 2020 onwards due to the Covid pandemic, Chandler developed a new series titled Landscapes of Loss which explores personal, community and global loss. This series was exhibited for the first time at Hastings City Art Gallery in late 2022, then at Aratoi Museum of Art & History, Wairarapa in 2024. It’s next stop is the Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, opening late November 2025.
The continuing thread of Chandler’s practice is her love of the act of painting, the substance of paint itself, colour and types of mark-making. She constantly strives for a balance between abstraction and figuration. Urban structures and people intertwine through a process of layering, obliterating and tracing. Images are painted in, painted out and painted over. The history in the layers of paint traces the transformation of urban space. Alongside her large-scale paintings, she also creates works on paper, often including collage and printmaking techniques.
Click here to see ‘ The Dividing Line’ Works on Paper catalogue
