Lisa Yuskavage
B. 1962 Lisa Yuskavage received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 1984 and her MFA from Yale University in 1986. Ten years later she was awarded the prestigious Tiffany Foundation Grant. Receiving her first one-person exhibition at Pamela Auchincloss Gallery in 1990, she has since had solo exhibitions at David Zwirner Gallery (2009), the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, Mexico (2006), the Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland (2001), the Marianne Boesky Gallery (2001), and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (2000). Her work has also been included in group exhibitions in venues around the world, including the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien in Vienna, Austria (2008), Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf, Germany (2008), the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee (2008), the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China (2007), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (2007), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (2003), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2000).
Yuskavage's work has been referred to as audacious and provocative. Her subjects tend to fall into three categories: those that are purely from the imagination, those that are from photos or live models, and those that come from any number of sources related to pop culture. However, the best way to view her work is to disregard the subject matter and focus on her beautiful and luscious technique of applying paint to the canvas. The same is true with her prints. Having already made a few etchings, Yuskavage came to ULAE to work on stones. Her first print was a beautiful, animated, classical drawing using only one stone and one color. She has since continued her exploration of lithography while also working with traditional etching techniques.