Lisa Nonken
Academic Director and Professor of Visual Arts

Lisa received her MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, her Post-Baccalaureate Certifi cate in Sculpture from the Lyme Academy of Fine Art, and her BA from Mount Holyoke College. Lisa is an American artist who fi rst came to Siena in 2008 as an instructor for the Siena School for Liberal Arts.
In 2010 she returned to Siena to help launch the Siena Art Institute. She is the current Academic Director at the Siena Art Institute and serves as a Professor of Fine Arts, co-teaching the interdisciplinary Art and Society course. She also teaches a Drawing courses offered in partnership with the Siena School for Liberal Arts. Lisa has exhibited both in the US and Italy, and has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Blue Sky Project. Awards include the REMET “Shaping the Future” Project Grant, and Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, and the 2014 Mary Lyon award from Mount Holyoke College for alumnae achievement.

Lisa’s interdisciplinary artistic practice includes work in sculpture, photography, and drawing. For the past several years, her interest in the public nature of art has led to an exploration of crowd dynamics and contemporary public identity: exploring the tension between one’s own private self-awareness and the presentation of oneself in the public setting of a group or crowd. She is particularly interested in public space as not only the site of projects but also as the subject.

Blue Sky Residency webpage: www.blueskydayton.org/artists/lisa-nonken

Statement from Robert Bills Contemporary Gallery:
As a sculptor and as an installation artist, Lisa Nonken brings a deep and complex understanding of space and scale to the exhibition. Using the anonymous human fi gure as her primary motif, her installations evoke the emotional drama of human encounters. While her photo-installation might seem to be the most representational piece in the exhibition, closer investigation reveals a deep dependency on the fundamental building blocks of abstraction, including the grid, geometric pattern and repetition.

Sart life