Lisa McShane
Oil Painter · Climate & Landscape · Samish Island, WA
Available at JG Art Gallery + Events™JG Art Gallery + Events™ · Bainbridge Island, WA · Park City, UT · jgartgallery.com
Lisa McShane grew up in California but her family has deep roots in Eastern Washington wheat country — her great-grandparents settled the plateau, her father's family had orchards on the Columbia River. She studied sculpture and oil painting at Sonoma State University, then spent years working in environmental policy with Conservation Northwest before returning to painting full time. Her studio is on Samish Island, surrounded by 15 acres of forest and overlooking Padilla Bay.
She has been an oil painter since age 12, working in Ludwig's studio near Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The technique she developed over decades — layered glazing that builds luminosity from the inside out — is visible in every canvas: the light in her paintings does not sit on the surface, it comes from beneath it.
McShane's subjects are the landscapes she knows intimately: the eroded hills and big skies of the Palouse, the cold water and tidal flats of Western Washington, the Skagit River delta where she has been tracking the effects of sea level rise. Her most recent work — two large canvases showing Samish Island now and as it will appear under projected sea level rise — is on display at the Washington State Treasurer's Office.
Artist in Residence at Petrified Forest National Park (2015) and Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument (2017). Her painting Mountains at Dusk is in the collection of the Washington State Governor's Mansion. The Sun Sets on the Slope of the Horse Heaven Hills hung in the American Embassy in Yemen for several years. Exhibited at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Museum of Northwest Art, and the Whatcom Museum. Eight solo shows in the past decade.
Oil on Linen on Wood
Overlooking Padilla Bay
American Embassy, Yemen
Washington State Treasurer's Office
Grand Canyon-Parashant NM 2017
Whatcom Museum · Museum of NW Art · BIMA
Available at JG Art Gallery + Events™
13 works
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Works available at JG Art Gallery, Bainbridge Island. Private viewings by appointment.
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