Artist Statement
I paint the desert from a distance.
The work is built in oil and cold wax or acrylic, layers laid down and scraped back, so the finished surface holds as much of what I removed as what I left. Nothing in it settles. That method became the subject: I'm drawn to what is incomplete, what stays in motion.
The Virga Series takes its name from rain that evaporates before it reaches the ground — dark clouds trailing streaks that stop in midair, a storm that never arrives. The Latillas Series comes from the coyote fence, crooked poles wired upright side by side across the southwestern landscape put there to keep something out yet never closing. You can see straight through it. Its top edge never runs level. Across both, new growth pushes up through gravel and shadow, verdant against the rust and black, then disappears. All are provisional things set against an enormous space.
From far enough away the desert reads as empty and still. It is neither. It withholds and renews on its own schedule, and every part of it is unsettled, unfinished.
About the Artist
Lisa Cunningham is a painter based in North Texas, working primarily in oil and cold wax.
Her work has been exhibited at the Arlington Museum of Art, Arts Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Art Fair. The 2024 Affirmations group exhibition at Gallery 440 received Fort Worth Weekly's Readers' Choice award for Best Art Gallery Exhibit.
Cunningham is a co-founder of the Fort Worth Art Collective and serves as its Assistant Coordinator. For more than a decade, the Collective has brought together established professional artists across disciplines to mount exhibitions and create opportunities for artists in North Texas.
Selected Exhibitions
COLLECTIVE
2026 - Pop Up. Show up. Experience Art., 5801 Curzon Ave. Pop Up Fall Gallery Night, Fort Worth
2026 - Deeply Rooted, Always Growing,
Fort Worth Public Library X Fort Worth Art Collective 125th Anniversary Exhibit
2025 - FWAC at AMA, Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, Texas
2025 - Annual PRIDE Juried Exhibition, Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, Texas
2025 - Unique by Nature, Juried Art Show, Finalist, McKinney Performing Arts Center, McKinney, Texas
2025 - Teeny Tiny, Spring Gallery Night, Illuminate Art Space, Fort Worth, Texas
2024 - Affirmations, Gallery 440, Fort Worth, Texas
Awarded Fort Worth Weekly’s Readers’ Choice Best Of 2024: Art Gallery Exhibit
2024 - FWAC, House of NeVille Gallery & Gatherings, Fort Worth, Texas
2023 - On the Wire, EPIC, Grand Prairie, Texas
2023 - FWAC 10 Year Anniversary, Arts Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
2023 - Fort Worth Art Fair, Sundance Square, Fort Worth, Texas
2023 - FWAC at the Pool, Near Southside, Spring Gallery Night, Fort Worth, Texas
2022 - Home, Partnership with Art Tooth, Spring Gallery Night, Fort Worth, Texas
2022 - Fort Worth Art Fair, Sundance Square, Fort Worth, Texas
2022 - A Collective Conspiracy, The Starr Conspiracy, Fall Gallery Night, Fort Worth, Texas
2022 - Duets, Arts Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
2021 - Fall Gallery Night, WRG – Workplace Resource Group, Fort Worth, Texas
2020 - Haute Pop, Spring Gallery Night, WestBend, Fort Worth, Texas
2020 - The New Abnormal, Arts Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
2019 - RED, Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, Texas
2019 - Small Works, ArtRoom, Fort Worth, Texas
2019 - Art in the Atrium 18, George A. Purefoy Municipal Center, Frisco, Texas
2019 - 2BIG, Galeria de la Rosa, Fort Worth Cultural Center for the Arts, Fort Worth, Texas
2018 - Vertical, Arts Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
2018 - FWAC, Keller Town Hall, Keller, Texas
2018 - Spring Gallery Night: FWAC, Arts Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
2018 - The BIG Show, Galeria de la Rosa, Fort Worth Cultural Center for the Arts, Fort Worth, Texas
SOLO
2026 - Ocotillo, Stage West Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas
2025 - Femme Symbiosis, Basement Lounge, Fort Worth, Texas
2025 - Ride the Cyclone, Stage West Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas
2018 - Virga, Basement Lounge, Fort Worth, Texas
2013 - The West, Arts Forth Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
