Margaret Lazzari: The Space of Color

In these new paintings, Lazzari pushes her exploration of internal and external space through an intense focus on color and form.  While continuing to use the natural world as inspiration, Lazzari delves into micro and macro views of different environs to convey a sense of time.  From an intense moment in the vibrantly orange Venus to the slow passage of time in the linear gray-blues of Eons, the paintings embody the resonance of a moment.

While being an extraordinarily accomplished representational painter, Lazzari’s intent in these is to convey the emotional - to speak without words through abstraction but to ground that exploration in deeply understood technique and form.  Her work is meticulous in its chaos - her mark-making is intense and deeply thoughtful - every brush stroke is considered although the effect is one of pure intuition.

In these paintings, Lazzari is merging the precepts of Abstract Expressionism and the intent of 19th century landscape painters to capture the sublime.  Noted art critic Harold Rosenberg who helped define Abstract Expressionism described the canvas as an “arena in which to act” and to listen to Lazzari speak about each painting is to see that concept in action.  But unlike AbEx painters and their focus on the intuitive, Lazzari is focused on the push and pull between chaos and order, representation and abstraction, and the balance of the gestural intuitive with the cerebral.  

Lazzari’s large scale canvases are often displayed unstretched just as she works on them in the studio.  The paintings begin on the studio floor with the artist approaching them from all sides before they are moved to the wall where Lazzari continues to change orientation until the composition feels complete.  The physicality of the work is a reference to the creative struggle but also to the complexities of existing in the world.  Lazzari is creating a moment of respite and exploration - a place to let the mind wander and free associate.  Lazzari doesn’t shy away from the darkness and the difficult and yet there is a beauty coaxed out of the storm that speaks to an eternal sense of hope.

Margaret Lazzari is a painter, writer, and Professor Emerita of Art at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design.  Lazzari has had numerous museum and gallery exhibitions, including her 2020 exhibition, Vastness, at George Billis Gallery LA and her 2015 solo exhibition at the Fresno Art Museum as Distinguished Woman Artist.  Her works are included in several permanent collections, including Cathedral Collection of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles; Kaiser Hospitals, California; Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama; Azusa Pacific University, California; Harrah’s Casino, New Jersey; the Fresno Art Museum; Clark University, Iowa; and St. Louis University Museum of Art. In 2018, she was named Honored Alumna of St. Louis University.

Lazzari has written several innovative textbooks, both as sole author of Practical Handbook for the Emerging Artist and also as co-author of Art and Design Fundamentals; Exploring Art: A Global, Thematic Approach, published by Cengage; and two drawing text/sketchbooks published by Oxford University Press.  The third edition of the Practical Handbook will be published in 2021 by Thames and Hudson.

Over her 33 years at USC, she taught in the MFA program and in undergraduate painting, drawing, design and general education areas. Lazzari established the design program, which greatly expanded offerings in the Roski school. She served in several administrative roles during her career, including Vice Dean of Faculty, Vice Dean of Art, and Chair of Painting and Drawing.  Lazzari lives and works in Southern California.

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