Lisa Salamandra

Adjunct Faculty

Lisa Salamandra is a visual artist and researcher who has lived and worked in France for over twenty-five years.  She works alternatively in three mediums: drawing, collage, and oils; her studio work naturally dividing itself into more than half a dozen series in progress, some begun over twenty years ago. The figure has always been central to her process; it is the element that she manipulates and transforms/transfigures, and one she uses symbolically and metaphorically.  Her visual research centers upon the manner in which the figure comes into being: its makeup and construction.

Education
Qualification of Maître de Conférences from the CNU, France (2021); PhD in Fine Arts research (2018), Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne; MFA in Fine Arts research (2011), Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne; Licence in Fine Arts (1997), Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint-Dénis; BFA in Fine Arts (1989), Maryland Institute, College of Art.

Research/Teaching experience
Lisa Salamandra’s thesis focused on a series in which she utilized advertisement photographs taken from local supermarket flyers that depicted raw meat. She used these images to construct female figures by collage. Her research seeks to explain why the viewer is affected by these images, and to shine light upon the origin of this effect found within our primitive past. In illustrating our profound ties to the animal, she depicts how the myths, rites, and taboos associated with the animal/human body are at work today.  This study treats the significance of the female image, spanning from the distant past to contemporary society.

Her teaching experience includes periods as a lecturer and Visiting Artist for public and private institutions, symposiums, and events. She is currently a Visiting Artist at Ensaama, Paris.

Publications
The research article “Meat and the Woman. Image of the raw woman,” in Diogène, a transdisciplinary journal in the humanities (2021); articles in RURAL-ity (2019) and FemininBio (2018); the exhibition catalogs Crotches (2017) and Daily Bread: Raw Meat (2013), and the monograph Daily Bread (mon pain quotidien) (2009).

Selected Exhibitions/Presentations
Fonds d’Art Moderne et Contemporain (Montluçon), Salles Jean-Hélion, Centre Nicolas-Pomel (Issoire), Galerie d’art La Villa Balthazar (Valence), Galerie La Ralentie (Paris), Parlement du Féminin (Opéra-comique, Paris), Palais Brongniart (Paris), Fondation des Etats-Unis (Paris), Salon de l’Agriculture (Paris), Franco-American Institute (Rennes), Couvent des Cordeliers (Paris), The Wall Gallery (Berlin), U.S. Ambassador’s Residency (Paris), Mona Bismarck Foundation (Paris), The American Library in Paris, Salon de Montrouge, Salon de Mai (Paris).

Permanent collections
Ernst & Young, Inc. (Neuilly-sur-Seine), Europain Développement, Inc. (Paris), La Maison Poilâne (Paris), La Confédération Française de la Boulangerie (Paris), Fond Shakers, city of Montluçon, Espace Culturel La Pléaide, city of Commentry, Sicaba-Adet (Bourbon-l’Archambault), Private collections.

 Commissions
La Maison Poilâne (Paris), Sicaba-Adet (Bourbon-l’Archambault).

View her work on her website.