Painting From A World Of Her Own

Lisa Warren’s paintings now at Standard Space in Sharon are of the people and things that fill her world: family, friends, pets, places, work. Even the everyday is captured — morning coffee amid flowers and sunlight; her beloved cat, Clemson, sitting in a sunny window; a vase of yellow tulips reflected black in a glass tabletop.

Warren’s world is a privileged one: houses in Greenwich, Maine, Sharon; vacations in the Caribbean. Yet there is neither pretension nor entitlement in her pictures. Figures are presented simply in loose and light brushwork against interiors wild with color and imagined patterns on textiles, floor coverings, and furniture reminiscient of Matisse. Warren’s daughters, husband, mother and father are there on the wall identified only by first name. She lets you into her world, but only so far.

There is “Charlotte,” calmly, confidently sitting on a white ottoman in a bedroom alive with color: small blue and green strokes create wallpaper that covers even the open door, while the brown floor is striped in blue, green and yellow stripes. In “Kate and Tilli,” a young woman with cascades of straight black hair wears a patterned jacket in denim blue. She holds the hand of a child with the loveliest face in the show. The little girl looks out of the canvas serenely: She knows she is loved.

A balding man seems preoccupied in “Waltz” as he sits in an armchair upholstered in white and yellow fabric covered with red leopard spots. What he may be thinking about — waltz and FMCP — are painted on a small blue insert near his left shoulder. A pink flower on a green budded stem  unexpectedly occupies the right corner of the picture. (Warren often inserts words or incongruent objects into her work.)

Warren, who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Yale, paints mostly in acrylic and watercolor. Her positioning of images is often unnatural — “Red Brick House,” for example, leans a bit to the right — which surprises you. Her picture planes are mostly flat, although she can achieve true depth when she chooses: “Clemson” shows her adored cat, a collection of dull yellow and brown brush strokes, enjoying the sunlight on a deep and wide window sill beside two vases full of colorful flowers.

Currently Warren is working on a commission from the NU Hotel in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y., to paint a mural in a bedroom as part of their NU Perspectives project to invite emerging artists to decorate hotel rooms. Warren has chosen Truman Capote, who famously lived and wrote in Brooklyn — “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood” were finished there — as her subject. Three watercolors, one of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly and two of Capote’s yellow house, are charming studies for the mural. 

There are several gorgeous watercolors of flowers — Warren can make rose petals palpable — and overstuffed interiors that mix brilliant colors and textures and objects into opulent visual feasts. Yet she can also make “Girl with Gray Hair” arresting in black and white with a slash of red lips.

  Lisa Warren’s show continues at Standard Space, 147 Main Street in Sharon, Conn., through Jan. 14, 2018. The gallery is open Thursday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Call 917-627-3261 or go to www.standardspace.net.