Lisa Rasmussen

An Exploration through Paintings, Photography, and Installation

My art is a metaphysical journey of discovery. Ever since childhood I have been fascinated with the liminal —- the neither here nor there, the betwixt or the in-between. I found it to be a realm of pure possibility. The ancient Celts called this state Caol ait or thin places, where the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds merge. I have found that through my creative process I can pass through a type of threshold that allows me to enter this realm of consciousness, where one can explore the interflow between soul and matter and between time and eternity. This allure with thin places has also led me to explore transformative psychology and my own personal shadow through dream work and Jungian analysis. My art is a recorded event of my deep interest in mysticism and the natural world, as well as a passageway into my own mythical inversion of reality. It is my deep exploration into non-ordinary reality and the mysteries of the unknown. A key element in my process is the study and travel to ancient cultures and sacred sites whose animistic worldview encompassed a belief in a magical Other World. My paintings or portals are visual archives that penetrate my unconscious. My surfaces are painted over layers of symbols and forms, recalling cave walls and ritual chambers. While creating I employ my two mental allies, instinct and intuition, to create a canvas of chaos and order My earthworks are ritual installations that are created around individual trees in the Bay Area. This work has been inspired by the Kalapturu tree (wishing tree) of India and by my ancestral connection to the ancient spirituality of Celts and Vikings, who also worshipped trees. In my earth works, I activate my belief in animism and the honoring of ancestors. They speak to the timeless nature of ritual and place. With photography I capture moments in the sacred sites that I have traveled to. In ordinary reality I photograph sacred moments of light that exemplify the beauty and magic of the moment. The Hands of Creation series manifested from my teaching of art to vulnerable and emotionally troubled children at a mental health agency in the Bay Area. n Ideally, in my work, I seek to honor that state of the soul where the artist/child experiences the ultimate liberation, which is the personal act of creation itself. Although, these works are diverse in medium they are all interconnected and are unified with a common goal of transcendence and the resurrection of my symbiotic connection to the creative universe. I believe that art is intrinsic to the nurturance of the human spirit and that art’s true essence is transformative. Ideally, in all my work I seek to honor that state of the soul when the artist experiences the ultimate liberation, which is the personal act of creation itself.