Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Written by: Annette Niebuhr

American painter Lisa Sanditz, visiting artist in painting and drawing in the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History, will give a public lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 10, in Room 116 of Art Building West.

Sanditz is an American painter whose work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo shows in the United States and Europe. Sanditz holds a Bachelor of Arts from Macalester College, a Master of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute, and was a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow. She currently teaches at Bard College.

frit-o-lay factory by lisa sanditz
Frit–O–Lay Factory, 2012, part of the Surplus collection by Lisa Sanditz.

Sanditz explains her most recent body of work, Surplus:

“The pastoral is as constructed as the exurbs, suburbs, and cities that it abuts. The ways these rolling hills and irrigated acres get used are my most recent investigation. My previous body of work, Sock City, led me on a long journey to factory towns in China in search of the places where the everyday goods I use originate, describing the impact of this consumer cycle on the landscape there. Surplus traces an even more intimate consumption cycle: the origins of food.

“The USDA defines a farm as a place where at least a thousand dollars’ worth of agricultural products is sold in a year. But our understanding of farming has a much wider meaning in the culture. As humans’ relationship to the land gets more complicated, our sense of the significance of these places gets more and more problematic. These new sculptures and paintings, as in my previous work, attempt to reconcile, through color, form, surface considerations, and art historical traditions, the relationship between modern quotidian desires and their tragic, comic, and complex impact on the American landscape.”

This lecture is sponsored by the School of Art and Art History, part of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, contact the School of Art and Art History, 150 Art Building West, in advance, at 319-335-1376.