Back Page with Lisa Ni Bhraonain

#3/3–“Fabergé Egg”–5″x 6″ oil pastels, gold leaf ink, lacquer varnish, and Conté crayon on cardboard

Artist Statement: The egg piece is the last of three–snake, apple, and egg–that are drawn from a single composition set vertically with the egg on top. Dostoyevsky wrote that consciousness is a disease. I apply this idea to the surface by choosing deep, jewel tone colors, gold leaf ink, and a varnished patina in depicting a work that, by its thematic layout, lifts the eyes of the viewer upwards but shows no quietude. Instead, I use a frenzy of pen and ink cross-hatching, slabs of color, a collage of jumbled shapes, and the slap-dash use of torn cardboard to surround and frame the three images.

Lisa Ni Bhraonain is a writer and closet painter with an MFA from OSU, originally from the east coast and now living in Corvallis, Oregon, with her extended family. Former translator of the Russian language, Ni Bhraonain does her best to lose herself in her stories, poems, and images as a respite from the reality of our times.