“Inside Outside” features Francie Lyshak’s most recent abstract work of monochromatic oil paintings. In these pieces Lyshak concentrates on the interaction of painted colored surfaces with reflected and refracted light. Applying her material with a palette knife, she allows the canvas a renewed objecthood and a unique presence. Some works feature patterns of repeated words and phrases, some legible, others of which vanish into the physical substance of the work. Other works concentrate on textured of fields of color in deceptively simple compositions. By so doing, Lyshak conjures contemplative moods, atmospheres and fluid meanings that prompt a meditative gaze, a calm, mindful form of looking.

Francie Lyshak, b. 1948, studied art in Paris, Detroit and NYC culminating in a master’s degree from Pratt Institute. Her painting career began in the 1970s as a young feminist in the East Village where she was a part of a community of anti-establishment artists, musicians and writers that included David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar, Gary Indiana, Bill Rice, and John Lurie. Francie Lyshak has exhibited in solo exhibitions at venues around New York including, most often, La Mama La Galleria and Carter Burden Gallery. She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions at venues including La Mama La Galleria, Denise Bibro Fine Art, A.I.R. Gallery, RC Fine Arts, Barbara Ann Levy Gallery, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., Carter Burden Gallery, and Stephen Harvey Fine Arts, and has shown work with curators and jurors including Alice Neel, Patterson Sims, and Paulina Pobocha. Lyshak is the recipient of awards at competitions and events including the First Annual Prize Competition, Provincetown Arts Association and Museum; Museum of the Hudson Highlands Fourth Annual Competition, Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY; and Annual Faber Birren National Color Award. Her work is represented in the collection of the Bronx Children’s Center, and in private collections in the US and UK.