Featured Artist Barbara Liss

Artist Barbara Liss creates concrete sculptures of expressive faces that relate to the human condition. Find more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

Creating my sculptures with concrete was an obvious choice for me. It was a medium I was already familiar with, as I used it as mortar for rock walls. I knew it would be durable for art in the outside environment.

 

 

Concrete is a very organic medium and I enjoy incorporating other elements into it. These elements are often the inspiration behind what the piece will look like.

 

 

When not creating I am exploring; while exploring, I find items to include in my sculptures. In my Precious Firewood series, the sculptures are carrying wood on their heads. They feature all different types of wood I have collected in the mountains and from the river bottom. I have painted designs on some of the wood.

 

 

My sculptures with feathers are not meant to be displayed outside as the feathers don’t hold up as well. But I find it irresistible to combine the lightest and heaviest of mediums.

 

 

I have to work fast, sculpting while the medium is wet. When complete, I cover it and slow cure it for thirty days to make it stronger.

 

 

In most of my sculptures, I often express a single thought. This may be about concrete things like snow and fishing, or emotions such as shyness, tiredness, confusion and more. If it is not immediately clear what the thought was behind my sculpture, the name will tell you. My art has now evolved into series that express more than one thought. In this way, I am able to tell a story.

 

 

In the Ringing In 2020 series, I incorporated antique bells that I have been collecting. This series celebrates the century, the decade and the year.

 

 

I created my four-piece Pandemic series because of what I was hearing and seeing every day in the media. One piece immediately followed the next. Self-isolation was happening, and I turned it into a three-dimensional description of what “isolation” was. “Corona” was being shown colorized microscopically, so it became incorporated in a sculpture depicting those features. “COVID-19,” the worst strain of the Coronavirus, I depicted with steampunk features. I then created the last, more humanized piece which showed how people were reacting to the pandemic—creating face masks and washing hands for “Protection.”

 

 

The next series was Healing and Rebirth, as a response to the illness and economic impact experienced by so many. More importantly, we now need it for the social healing of our country. The snakes in the pieces represent the wisdom we need for healing and rebirth.

 

 

Communicating through art is quieter, so it can be heard more clearly.

 

Artist Barbara Liss invites you to follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

 

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