Lissa's Artist Statements
Lissa used to say “Medicine is my hemorrhage, but art is my transfusion.” Now, her life as a gynecologist and as an artist form a perfect marriage. Helping women get their mojo back at the Owning Pink Center inspires her art, and The Woman Inside Project demonstrates how she also uses art as part of her healing practice. Many who view her art see how the science of medicine inspires her art, as evidenced by the reproductive imagery that crosses over all of her art series. Her art also inspires her medical practice and enlivens the walls where she sees clients. Learning to integrate these two seemingly divergent facets of her wholeness has helped Lissa learn to integrate other previously fragmented aspects of her being, such that every part contributes to and enhances the whole. Is she more doctor or more artist? She is both, and she doesn’t have to choose.
When Lissa creates art, she works in series. Listed below are the descriptions of what her art means to her, by series:
The Woman Inside
View The Woman Inside on LissaRankinArt.com - Visit The Woman Inside Virtual Exhibit
My aim in creating The Woman Inside Project is to shine a light on the beautiful woman that lies within each woman afflicted with breast cancer. The idea to create this project came to me when, in my work as an OB/GYN physician, I had to tell a woman who was pregnant that her biopsy was positive for breast cancer. Inspired to help her memorialize that moment in time, before she gave birth, lost her breasts, and everything changed, I offered to cast her body in plaster. The seed of an idea gestated, and five years later, I am giving birth to this exhibition as a way to honor the beauty within each woman, particularly those with breast cancer.
When I invite a woman to participate in this project, I invite her into my home, where I sculpt her torso using medical plaster bandages. After casting a woman’s figure, I hold up the sculpture and say, “So this is what the world sees. Now tell me about the rest of you.” I then listen for as long as it takes her to unveil the breathtaking woman inside. When she is done telling her story, I transcribe her story into a first person narrative of the beauty I see within her (and geez, are these women gorgeous!) Some of the women I sculpted describe the process as a spiritual healing of sorts, during which I touch their bodies, place bandages over their wounds, then remove the bandages, leaving them feeling whole. For others, the process is traumatic, dredging up painful memories of surgical bandages and scars. Either way, the experiences are authentic, and I feel blessed to have been there, holding hands, holding space.
While traumas such as breast cancer crack us open and force us to grow, we all experience painful wounds that threaten to unravel us. It’s how we respond to our wounds that tests us and gives us the opportunity to blossom. When you experience The Woman Inside Project, my goal is that each of you not only sees the beauty within these women, but that you see the beauty within YOU. While I chose as models breast cancer survivors because their wounds are so visible, I could have sculpted any group of survivors, and the stories would be equally riveting and awe-inspiring. When people have been to hell and back- and you invite them to tell their truth- what emerges is a slender green stalk that, with tending, blooms into full flower. The women who participated in this project have created a garden for which I can claim no credit. It has been an honor to be their witness.
The Process To create this art project, I reinforced the backs of the plaster casts with two-part resin and painted the surface with the skin-like encaustic medium (molten pigmented beeswax). The encaustic paint, which is applied with a brush at 200 degrees and then fused with a blow torch, is applied in many layers and then scraped back with ceramic tools. The stories are then handwritten with ink on Kozo paper and coated with encaustic on a heated aluminum plate. An encaustic monotype technique is then used to visually enhance the appearance of the scrolls.
Delta Series
delta- the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet. Anything triangular, like the Greek capital delta , Mathematics- an incremental change in a variable, a nearly flat plain of alluvial deposit between diverging branches of the mouth of a river. Astronomy –a star that is usually the fourth brightest of a constellation.
Three years ago, when I first began painting this series, my life was in flux. The dynamic tensions that arose were projected through my art. What evolved was a series that reflected my conflict with the status quo. Egg-like circles are pulled together, as if by gravity, while being simultaneously drawn apart, weightless. Etched lines create the vital push and pull, at once drawing the elements inward while they appear to resist the centrifugal force drawing them into the center. I try to demonstrate motion and address issues of conflict and resolution, reflecting what 's happening in my own life. I view painting as a vessel for expressing the relationship dynamics around me, with the colorful elements becoming figurative, in peace or in friction. Each tells a story.
When this series began, I was still struggling with the fluid dynamic between myself as artist and myself as healer. In trying to find balance between these opposing forces, feeling the conflict between the spiritual nature of art and the pragmatic side of Western medicine, I sought to clarify the dichotomy within myself. Painting helped me realize that, in order to resolve the conflict, I needed to leave my medical practice. While the decision was very difficult, I now feel free. Without the pull of medicine drawing me away from my creative life, I finally feel comfortable revisiting the color in the Delta series, after two years of creating work for the Plainsong series. The changes in my life bring new energy to the art, and I believe that embracing color, once again, must signal my personal healing. Now, when those close to me ask "How's life?", I like to say "It's full of delta." In taking risks, I feel like I'm jumping off cliffs, but while the end is a bit uncertain, the free fall is definitely worth the ride. View selected works from Delta. -Lissa Rankin 2007
Plainsong Series
plain·song ( pleyn-sawng, -song) the unisonous vocal music used in the Christian church from the earliest times, modal liturgical music; Gregorian chant, any simple and unadorned melody or air.
In the Plainsong series, I embrace the serenity of painting. In the absence of color choice, I find myself becoming one with the process of painting, in its purest state. I began painting this series shortly after the birth of my daughter, the death of my father, a geographical move of my family, and the exciting but difficult decision to retire from my career as an ob/gyn physician. In the midst of the chaos, escaping to my art studio, where I could blanket myself in the tranquility of monochromatic painting, became a welcome haven.
What results is imagery of life and birth, pushing and pulling in opposing directions with gestural lines, simultaneously drawing in and letting go . Abstractly figurative elements suggest family structures, relationship tensions, and dynamic interconnectedness. In some of the art, I deconstruct garments that represent important milestones in my life and recreate them in a painting, giving them new life and helping me to heal the past. As I work with whites, I try to capture the luminosity of light itself, embracing the sensuality inherent to the highlights it suggests- the white light of the sun on a lover’s face, the grayish-white of a moon glow, the dappled light of rippling water in late afternoon.
Marrying encaustic painting, painting with molten beeswax, with painting in white tones seems a natural union. While white invites comparisons to substances in nature- snow, clouds, water, ice, and alabaster, wax, itself a natural substance, enhances the properties of white, adding translucence, depth, and a sense of fragility. The paintings are created using many thin layers of wax, which attract light and refract it, leaving interpretation open to the viewer.
Recently, I have experimented with sculpture for the first time, informing the art with elements from my paintings- the egg shape, the female form, the vessel- to explore working three dimensionally. Over time, my paintings have become increasingly textural, so making the journey to sculpture seems a natural way to grow as an artist.
As I learn to find more balance and resolve conflicts in a more peaceful way, I continue to seek the open doors that lead to greater inspiration and experience. For now, the Plainsong paintings are a way to close off from the world, open my heart to insight and introspection, and gently integrate back into my surroundings in a peaceful way. Through it all, the journey of my life continues, touched with light, brilliant with reflection, airy like a plainsong, an unadorned melody. View selected works from Plain Song -Lissa Rankin, 2008
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