Biography:
www.lisafarris.net
I am enchanted by the fact that throughout history, in every culture, in every era, we humans have had a strong need to render our own images and to make them fancy. I love this so much. I love that a thousand years ago someone felt the urge to scribble a picture of themselves on the wall of a cave or to carve their face on the handle of a spear. As if to say, Look at me. Here I am. I am alive in the world.
And so my work is mostly figurative, made from that most ancient of materials: clay. I find inspiration from all the old objects in museums -- African masks, Egyptian mummies with elaborate decorations, celebratory tribal costumes with crazy juxtapositions of shapes and scale. Studying these objects, I am also inspired by the endless connections we as a species have made between human forms and natural forms. Fish and birds show up on totems and drums. Flowers and vines appear on a crown or a gown or a face.
In my most recent series, I was inspired by a visit I made to Palm Desert and Joshua Tree National Park. I was amazed by the very human quality of what I saw on my hikes. Now when I look at palm trees in Indian Canyon, I see giant shaggy men dancing in the waterfalls. When I look at a Joshua Tree, I see exuberant arms reaching to the sky. It is the best kind of anthropomorphism, full of abundance and joy. This new work blurs the lines between man and nature. A tree becomes a person. A person becomes a plant: A mouth full of petals, a head studded with leaves. The more I worked on this series, the more lush and extravagant I tried to be, just like nature herself. I want people to see that being human is to be grounded in the natural world, just like all the people before us throughout the history of mankind. I want people to remember this connection, to feel the deep spiritually of this relationship and to bask in the joy of it.
