Statement: Making art helps me to communicate with the world around me. It often serves as an escape and sometimes a response to the reality that exists. It is my way of making the world a better place. Biography: Lisa diStefano is a career artist living and working in South Louisiana. Lisa grew up in Baton Rouge where she attended Louisiana State University earning a BFA in painting and drawing. Upon completion of her BFA, she worked in visual merchandising, which helped hone her skills in spatial composition and her unique use of color and design. Ms. diStefano was a founding member of Studio 801, an artist cooperative in Baton Rouge that exhibited tri-annually. She is an artist in residence and Membership Director of the NUNU Arts and Culture Collective. Her paintings are part of corporate and private collections nationally and internationally. She has exhibited throughout Louisiana, Dallas, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and the Brittany region of France. She is also part of Degrees of Separation, an interdisciplinary international exchange between Louisiana and Brenton Photographers, painters and poets/writers. The exhibit opened in 2014 during the Chinati Weekend in Marfa, TX. She is currently working in the media of acrylic paint and oil pastel focusing on the Louisiana landscape. About The Work: Lisa diStefano finds herself in new territory with the body of work. The paintings are more honest and weighted than anything she has offered to date. The Louisiana landscape becomes more than a springboard of diStefano’s painterly virtuosity; instead, it functions as a vehicle for a deeply personal investigation. Louisiana’s wetlands are being washed away – an area the size of a football field disappears every 35 minutes. Inland areas which are typically protected by barrier islands, which absorb heavy storm surges from hurricanes and tropical storms, are disappearing and barrier islands are sinking, the lands are vulnerable to flooding and resulting erosion. In order to represent this loss, diStefano creates landscapes that dissolve and are interrupted by fragmented panels and the removal of images. It is nearly impossible for diStefano to comprehend this loss of coastal lands to natural forces and processes exacerbated by human activities. She has managed to reframe the landscape, painting it in a way that moves beyond the well worn stereotypical imagery. Her art is simultaneously singular and deeply connected to the fine art tradition. One can see echoes of the abstract expressionist concept of gestures extending beyond the borders without limitation, irreducible and insoluble.