Lisa Candela is a New York based artist whose work is informed by her experience of the body.   The figures originate from art historical sources such as symbolism and magical surrealism to contemporary cultural imagery. The forms are often contorted, stretched, elongated, or fragmented and often in conflict or harmony with nature conveying the trauma, stress, and shame that is placed on the body.

Her process usually starts with drawing directly on the canvas with a wash of thin paint working in gestural movements while intuitively searching for forms. She frequently works on a large scale using her whole body in a physical way, moving around the canvas while drawing and redrawing the form in an intuitive process of anatomically exaggerating and correcting the drawn figure which sometimes results in an overlapping of multiple lines, resulting in multiple limbs, hands and facial features.

After the initial drawing, the painting is reworked in a methodical method of tracing her hands or drawing a repetition of patterns found in nature, overlapping new drawings over existing ones.

 Her recent shows include “Every Woman Biennial 2024” at LaMaMa Galleria, New York, NY, “Women in the Heights: Dress” at NoMAA, New York, NY, “The Face of Justice” at The Kota Alliance, and “Transplants” at Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn NY. She recently participated in residencies at ChaNorth, Pine Plains, New York in the fall of 2023 and the Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock, New York in the summer of 2023.