What has been a seminal experience?

So many, but I’ll tell one at a time. Just after high school I went backpacking through Spain for 2 weeks. I was 18 when I ventured into the Salvador Dali Museum and Theatre in Figueres, Spain. I didn’t want to leave and remember picking up an itch to paint that day. If you’ve never been, it’s a wonderland of grotesque beauty. #lisangart #artdiary #artthoughts

Imagination and a strong desire to be one. Confidence, a good work ethic, mastery of a medium, financial security and a support system of mentors and artistic peers helps, and those are fairly straight forward to obtain. Imagination and desire, a passion, that secret element of “Je ne sais quois” though, I’m not sure if that’s inborn, or a bi-product of having to test oneself creatively to overcome an obstacle. Do artists have to suffer heartbreak to make good art? I do think they have to live a little and step out of their comfort zones, get a richer, maybe a more authentic experience to draw from. You can copy a Rembrandt all damn day but it doesn’t make you a good artist, it just makes you a good copy cat. You can copy all your favourite artists and combine all your favourite bits together, but if there’s no true element of yourself in it, it won’t be very original. Maybe at its best, art is authentic human thought and connection. Let me know if you have any answers.

What is my background?

I’m a second generation, Chinese Canadian. My Cantonese is a little choppy but I am fluent in English, Chinglish and painting. I’m a rat in the Chinese zodiac and my mom is a snake. We have a very charged relationship because snakes eat rats for dinner! My first words were in Cantonese but I started to lose it when I was enrolled in English school. There’s always been a communication barrier between my mother and I, a cultural clash, a language wall, a deep frustration of a mix of bad hearing over angry yelling, I’m not sure what it was. She did teach me how to read and write and draw my first hand turkeys. In my teenage years I started communicating with her through hand written notes, little doodles and things, it was just an easier way, a calmer way to get our ideas across. When I moved out, I’d send her snail mail. I guess I’ve grown accustomed to communicating through symbols, patterns and colours.

Sort of went on a tangent there. I never know how to answer that question because I don’t just make art about the Chinese Canadian experience explicitly, but I hope that helps to explain how my background informs my work.

It all starts with an idea that excites, which can come from anywhere. Next is gathering reference material. This usually involves researching various things and collecting and taking pictures. Next, I work on some sketches, usually a combination of being done by hand and some of it done on the computer using Photoshop to tweak patterns, or the shape of things, or imagining what colours it might look good in. Next is transferring the final drawing onto the canvas and then I paint! I mix all my own colours as it allows for more options 🌈

Why do you do what you do?

I make art to breathe. If I don’t take a little time each day to paint a bit I get grumpy. Some say it’s an outlet, or a form of meditation, I would call it a necessity. I’ve been making art since I could hold a crayon. It’s the only place where I feel like I can really explore being myself, tackling the most interesting thought that comes to me. I don’t feel like I have to conform to anyone or anything, I can paint whatever I feel like, to me, that is freedom. I had a rather brief childhood that was quickly interrupted with a firm regiment of endless piles of math homework, piano practice, swimming laps and copying out the dictionary, so when that was all done and over with for the day, all I wanted to do was art. Art was the one thing that was never enforced in my childhood and for some reason, maybe out of unconscious rebellion, I went really crazy with it. In short, I did not end up an eye doctor like my parents had hoped, but ended up a painter with bad eyesight 😔🤓 Bless every beautiful eye doctor in this would. How has your childhood/upbringing made you an artist or not one? Why do you make art?

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Lisa Ng (last name pronounced “ing”) and I’m a surrealist painter who enjoys animals, colours and patterns, among many things. Being on the art path has lead me also to a host of other things. I’m a registered nurse, a wife and a mom of two toddlers, but don’t let that extensive resume fool you, I’ve been good at art since I could hold a crayon 🖍️ #lisangart #artbio #artstuff

2024 already?

Apologies, it’s been a minute. I did finish a couple of large paintings:

Goat Cabinet Living Room
acrylic on canvas
40 x 30 x 1.5 inches
2023

A domesticated animal safari, organic, free range, IKEA? I’m not so sure myself.

Tigers In A Field Of Blue Fur
acrylic on canvas
60 x 24 x 1.5 inches
2023

(I’m still waiting for a better day to take some better pictures of this one.)

My son is a tiger in the Chinese zodiac, an ode to all the late nights and early mornings in twilight, nursing him.

I did a small commission of a blue tongued skink with a hippie patterned background:

Pets aren’t allowed in the building so when she says she has to tend to her painting of a blue tongued skink, she means just that. 

I also sold my Blobfish, it went to Japan just before the holidays:

Here is a piggy I’m working on now, it’s small. 9 x 12 inches:

I also finished another commission headed to Singapore, but I better wait a bit before I share it, as it’s a gift! 

Let me know if you have any questions, thanks for watching!

🐖 Lisa

I’m working on some new stuff: Acrylic on paper, postcard size, 5 x 7 inches. They’re short and sweet and great for popping off ideas.

Thank you everybody who peeped in on my art show!

It’s been hectic around here. Been starting the day at 4am, he likes to watch me paint.

A painting of a living room of animals as furniture, this painting is a sophisticated take on domestic life. A cross between man and nature, surreal and open to interpretation, there are more questions than answers here.

I’m showing Art this summer through July, August and September! This is the first exhibit since before the pandemic and having 2 babies. I have a focus on new work on the top portion, Animal Furniture, and a few pieces from my Ugly Animals In Cute Outfits series, bottom right. It’s BBQ summer weather also so I brought in an old classic, my Juicy Jumbo to celebrate. I’m told it will be up for Hamilton’s big Supercrawl too! What an honour 🔆