Biography
Lisa Krigel (b. 1961, Pittsburgh, USA) lives and works in Cardiff. Recent solo exhibitions include Mission Gallery, Swansea (2019), Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, Cwmbran (2018) and the Museum of Modern Art, Machynlleth (2017). Recent group exhibitions include New Brewery Arts, Cirencester (2020), Oita Prefectural Museum, Japan (2019) and The Royal Cambrian Academy of Art, Conwy (2018). In 2016 she won the Gold Medal for Craft and Design at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, Abergavenny.
Since moving to the UK in 1999, Lisa has continued to work as both a practicing ceramic artist and educator. Based at Fireworks Clay Studios since 2000, she has exhibited nationally and internationally in both group and solo exhibitions, contributing to various publications, leading workshops in schools and community groups and has undertaken residencies. She has also worked on a number of commissions, including work for the British Television series Sherlock Holmes and most recently for the Maggie's Cancer Centre in Cardiff. She received an Arts Council Development Grant in 2005 and the Gold Medal for Craft and Design at the National Eisteddfod in 2016. She currently lectures in Fine Art and Arts, Health and Wellbeing at the University of South Wales and has done so since 2018.
Lisa's functional sculptural ceramics explore and develop forms that are found in modern and brutalist construction. Investigating the relationship between form and architecture, creating a delicate synthesis between form and function, she is currently building stacked ware that when deconstructed introduces theatre to communal dining.
Each stacked tower makes visual reference to the stark architectural buildings that have inspired its form and a metaphorical reference to the philosophies inherent in designs for a social utopia.
Lisa revels in the parallels to be drawn between the crafting of ceramic and concrete materials, the domestic and the monumental.
As the focus of intimate meals, dinner parties and celebratory events, where opportunities for storytelling, discussion and debate are created, Lisa's work comes into its own.
