Wayfinding: Oceania to Abstraction
with artist in residence Lisa Blas

Join artist in residence Lisa Blas on Wednesday 7 May at 1pm

Booking on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/wayfinding-oceania-to-abstraction-tickets-1335239891459?aff=oddtdtcreator

Wayfinding: Oceania to Abstraction

An island is one great eye

gazing out, a beckoning lighthouse,

searchlight, a wishbone compass,

or counterweight to the stars.

Yusef Komunyakaa

This talk begins with an inquiry into the origin stories of abstraction to reach new perspectives of painting in a global context. We begin in northern Oceania, the U.S. territory of Guåhan, to uncover traditions defining a people and region. From these sightlines, we travel forward in time and place, focusing on four women painters whose groundbreaking work in the twentieth century continues to resonate for artists in the twenty-first century. We will learn how writers and historians contextualized their production via overlapping themes of nature, repetition, materiality and spiritualism. In addition, I will present interpretations by contemporary artists, who illuminate this history in poetic and written form. Together, we will navigate routes of abstraction, to renew and expand the story farther afield.