2016 Recipient of the Sustainable Arts Fellowship
Lisette Morel is the recipient of the Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship for Artists Who are Parents and is Gallery Aferro’s first official fellowship funded artist in residence.
The idea of repetition is a vehicle for creation and Lisette’s rhythmic gestural reiterations of motifs are utilized to open the viewer’s mind to oscillating states of consciousness, an invitation to encounter a gathering of clashing energies; blissful, ritualistic, and raw. With each marking and use of materials Lisette Morel tries to physically expose the complexities inherent in our (emotional) selves, our sense of identity and in the acceptance/awareness of the transience of life and moments.
Morel is not interested in creating a pretty picture she demands more than what has already been defined and imposed upon us; as a woman of color, Morel intends to defy, to question “why not?” and “what if?” Through her practice of alchemy and dance with unorthodox materials, industrial paints, domestic objects, found spaces, her body, Morel orchestrates unapologetic alternative configurations; transitory installations and performances of visceral moments in an emotive vortex. She is interested in reframing to blur and erase boundaries which separates life and art. The process embraces the ugly absurdities and the ethereal, it is inherently unfiltered, crude with impulsive and frantic repetitive movements, tangled anxious marks, documenting being present, questioning traditional concepts.
Lisette Morel is a Dominican-American artist born in 1974 in Manhattan, NY. She is a recipient of the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Her work has been reviewed by The New York Times and The Star Ledger. Lisette has also exhibited at the Jersey City Museum and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, PA. Morel received her Masters in Fine Arts at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University and her Bachelor of Arts at Rutgers University.