Statement

Thank you for exploring my work. The decades as a practicing artist have taken me to places I could have never predicted and grounded my life through daily studio sessions. I have endless appreciation for the collectors, galleries, museums and studio visitors that have expanded my reach. Thank you to Elliot Bostwick Davis, Ph.D. for helping to craft the statement below.

LISA BOSTWICK: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POST-MODERN POP

Lisa Bostwick brings her perspective as a painter, teacher, and psychologist to the evolving legacies of American Pop Art, expanding upon the abstractions of Jasper Johns’ flags, the Western wildlife of Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species, and the sunlit pools of David Hockney. Bostwick seamlessly moves across multiple modes of expression, applying a sophisticated and nuanced sense of color, form, and brushwork. 

Surrounded at a young age by accomplished athletes, artists, and designers, Bostwick’s practice embodies discipline, precision, and creative freedom, honed through years of technical exploration. “I thrive on the tension between structure and spontaneity,” she says, reflecting on the way her process shifts between abstraction and representation. The flag serves as a recurring motif in her work—an anchor from which she propels her landscapes forward. In her recent Palm Springs–inspired series, she explores the concept of  “oasis” in which nature and the manmade environment, including pools, highlight the realms of public versus private. Her flags provide boundaries in the structure of stars and stripes, yet invite the possibilities to push color and form to unexpected places, an apt metaphor for the American experiment.

In her lakeside scenes, Bostwick explores spaces where people gather, revisiting childhood memories through the ever-evolving lens of her kaleidoscopic artistic practice. “These places hold stories,” she says. “The lakes, the trees—they’re the backdrop for shared experiences, and I want to capture that fleeting sense of time and connection.” Here, the rigor of her portraiture and figural work serves as a grounding force within the landscape. She invites us into a world of social interactions carving out a singular artistic voice that transcends pre-existing styles.

While her landscapes may recall the romantic vistas of Thomas Cole, who described lakes as “the eye of the landscape” (Essay on American Scenery, 1836), Bostwick’s vision offers a contemporary evolution. Unlike Thomas Cole’s now dated concept of the American landscape, Bostwick paints glistening water as having the potential for rebirth, renewal and opportunities to reimagine a modern American landscape. Nearly 200 years later, she charts a new course for American art—one that deeply honors the wildlife and landscapes and iterates on the American flag. Her practice weaves together elements of texture, light and movement and invites contemplation, as well as emotional connection. Whether depicting the Eastern Woodlands or the vast expanses of the American West, where she has studied and lived since college and art school, Bostwick engages with water—lakes, pools, and reflections—as a recurring symbol. “For me, water represents buoyancy, the unconscious, translucency, and of course life, as we are reminded by descendants of our earliest known inhabitants” she explains.

In the 1960s, during the rise of American Pop Art, few women artists found space or recognition within the movement. Six decades later, Bostwick forges her own path, one that diverges from Warhol’s commercialism and Rauschenberg’s object-driven combines, offering instead a vision that is distinctly her own. If her work must be placed within a continuum, Post-Modern Pop may best capture its essence—a synthesis of aesthetic precision, conceptual depth, and psychological inquiry. Through her singular approach to painting, she does not just depict the world—she poses new questions. “I want my paintings to expand the way we see,” she says, “to enhance the worlds we already inhabit and invite us into something new.”