Allegorical Visions

Lisa Rickard was the Grand Prize Winner in International Artist magazine’s Challenge No. 153 Favorite Subjects.

Lisa Rickard is a realist ﬁgurative artist based in Florida, known for her imaginative realism work featuring nude ﬁgures that allegorically represent abstract ideas. Her artwork often explores universal themes of shared humanity.

Rickard’s journey as an artist began when she was a teenager drawing inspiration from live models, particularly a ballet dancer. She further honed her skills at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design where she received her BFA in graphic design. Before becoming a full-time ﬁne artist, Rickard spent two decades as a commercial artist in advertising and corporate marketing.

Chrysalis, oil on canvas, 10 x 20 in.Her insights into the power of human form have been strengthened by time spent as a dancer and dance instructor. Rickard describes her creative process as an exercise in carefully choreographing her muses to represent universal human themes. She cites inﬂuences such as John William Waterhouse and Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau for ﬁnding inspiration in the works of past masters.

Rickard’s work has been featured in various art exhibitions including the 2022 Painting the Figure Now exhibition at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art. Five paintings and four drawings juried into Art Renewal Center’s 14th to 18th International Salons resulted in those works being permanently featured on their website and in the prestigious ARC Salon books. Her work has been published in art magazines and highlighted in a recent book, Manifest for the Moon. Three paintings and three drawings have been reproduced for inclusion in time capsules of human creativity NASA launched to the moon with over 50,000 artists’ work for posterity at www.lunarcodex.com.

Allegorical Figure, graphite on paper, 20 x 10 in.Among her recent works is Luna, which depicts a woman with feathered wings, crouching atop a stone pillar. A gigantic moon can be faintly seen in the backdrop. “Luna is the ﬁrst of a new group of oil paintings in my continuing series of allegorical ﬁgures. She is the personiﬁcation of hope, wings rising above her, while kneeling at the edge of silence as she turns inward before moving forward,” says Rickard.

Canopus, oil on canvas, 18 x 36 in.

Artist Lisa Rickard in her studio.

Luna, oil on linen panel, 40 x 20 in.

Her graphite piece Callisto, a square composition of a nude woman clutching a cloth, continues the series. “She is the personiﬁcation of adolescence, named after one of Jupiter’s largest prominent moons that scientists postulate may possess a subsurface ocean which brings to my mind a symbolic representation of a teens’ underlying emotional life,” says the artist.

Callisto, graphite, 24 x 24 in.

Rickard’s most recent allegorical ﬁgure painting, Chrysalis, was featured in the Venus Reclaimed exhibition at 33 Contemporary Gallery in the Palm Beach Art & Design Showroom in Florida. This painting was also the Grand Prize winner of International Artist’s Favorite Subjects competition. “While making sketches of my sister, she wrapped herself in a sheet bringing to mind a chrysalis that forms around a caterpillar in preparation for emerging as a butterﬂy. My sister became the embodiment of the iconic idea of transformation in nature. I was inspired to paint a portrait of human metamorphosis after making studies of her preparing to emerge from her chrysalis and a kneeling ﬁgure personifying the emotionally charged thoughts and feelings that often arise with change,” says the artist. “I ﬁnished Chrysalis working wet-into-wet (alla prima) to place the maple leaf and oak leaf symbolizing change and renewal and the subtle light of the moon to contribute to the ethereal mood.” —