THE ART OF LILLIAN CARTWRIGHT

photo of Lillian Cartwright artist's quote - "I am interested in human behavior at all stages of the life cycle, and how women and men situate themselves in physical, historical, and psychological space."

Lillian Cartwright was born in New York and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Queens College. She received her MA from the University of Illinois and her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She has studied and written extensively about lives over time both as a researcher and as a psychotherapist. Her interest in individuals, their subjective experiences, memory, and emotions informs her work as an artist.
Cartwright has been interested in art all her life. In New York, she studied at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. In California, she attended the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts and has worked with several leading Californian watercolorists including Leah Schwartz, Helen Stanley, and Tim Clark. Her work has been exhibited in juried shows throughout California. Cartwright's watercolors and collaged water-based media work are held in many private collections nationwide. She has had several solo show in San Francisco including the University of California and the University Club.
She currently divides her time between Mendocino County where she is belongs to the Mendocino Art Center and San Francisco. In San Francisco, as a member of the Teacher-Artist Organization (TAO), she is teaching in the Art With Elders Program. This program works with patients in nursing homes and provides them with art appreciation and instruction.
Her work has been exhibited in juried group shows in California. Cartwright's watercolors and collaged water-based media work is held in many private collections throughout the country. Following is a brief and selected list of her recent exhibitions:

1999: University of California, San Francisco. Solo Show
1999: University Club, San Francisco. Solo Show
2000: Mindful Body: Solo Show
2000: Coleman Advocates, San Francisco: Solo Show
2002: Ardency Gallery,Oakland: Group Show TAO
2003: Office of the Mayor, Cultural Center, Oakland Group Show of Leading Painters from Oakland Galleries. Cartwright's The Dancer is featured on the show's website
2003: Chatterbox Gallery, San Francisco: Solo Show
2003: San Francisco Public Library, Jewett Gallery: Group Show
2004: Biannual Figure Drawing Collective, Mendocino, California: Group Show
2004: TAO Group Exhibition, SomArts main gallery, San Francisco, CA

My work deals primarily with people and is, in that sense, figurative. I am interested in human behavior at all stages of the life cycle and how women and men situate themselves in physical, historical, and psychological space. Memories emerge as if they happened yesterday and there is a quixotic and ambiguous quality to some of my images: Sadness and pensiveness exist side-by-side with the trappings of celebration and gloss. Humor can take over what might otherwise be a dismal situation.
When I began working full time as an artist, rather than sandwiching it in between patients and research, I concentrated on making relatively small watercolors addressing themes of memory and change. I used the grid as a primary structure and then invaded it with intruding images (SEE "Play it again Sam," "Memories," "You Must Remember This," and "Con-Nection."
In February of 1999, I was ill with the flu and sat in front of the TV hours on end and watched the impeachment hearings, images of Tripp, Monica, Hyde, Clinton, and Starr roiled through my brain and a new venture began. For the next three years I turned away from watercolors and turned toward acrylics and multiple square canvases {12x12, 10x10, 5x5 and 3x3 inch} and created four large, sprawling pieces, which covered the floors and then the walls of my studio.
------All four pieces provide low key social commentary --answers are not attempted but questions are raised- the inquiry is into America-the pluralistic and contradictory nature of American life -scandals, hatred, beauty, greed, consumerism, creativity, false gods and goddesses, vulnerability, gullibility, and hope.
------From another vantage point, the pieces document a particular period of American life, as I've perceived it-and thus the canvases function as a visual diary. A brief description of the pieces follows:
1. THE DANCE (2000-2001) The thematic material concerns creativity and the artist. In this piece, Martha Graham pays homage to Emily Dickinson through her dance " The Letters". Suggestions of Dickinson's poem 'this is my letter to the world that never wrote to me" are in fragments, faintly painted into the dress of Graham. The wish to communicate through art, to try to convey a personal perspective not only characterized these two women but all artists. The counterpoint between Graham, who was an icon in her lifetime, and Dickinson, who accepted her destiny as an artist who was not to be recognized, is moving. In Dickinson's words "If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her-if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase".
View "The Dance"
2. THE UNRECONSTRUCTURED MAN: (2000) This piece was done one year before 9/11 and thus is prescient. I was intrigued by the Middle East, Central Asia, and Islamic Fundamentalism and was reading books on these subjects (Simon Reeve's "The Modern Jackal" and Ahmed Rashid's Taliban). From the Southern Poverty Law Center, I received literature on hate crimes in the United States. The Columbine shootings had taken place and I began ruminating on the deep roots of rage. I obsessed on the men who committed crimes against humanity in the name of a "higher" calling. The icon of the world trade building was inspired by Yousef's 1993 attempt to destroy the building, not the 9/11 tragedy. The NRA's position on guns added fuel to the fire of my inquiry. The 3x3 images of the poison oak and wild flowers that run through the piece remind us toxic forces have been with us always and are not just a product of contemporary times.
------Miles Davis is the "site seer" or "sound seer" of this collage. Quincy Troupe's "Miles and Me" offered the title "The Unreconstructed Man". Troupe saw Davis as a complicated, complex man whose aloofness, scorn, and destructive behaviors stood side-by-side with musical genius and creativity. Davis rejected conformity to an "Uncle Tom world" and at times became the" Prince of Darkness." The "axis of evil" is too simple way of viewing the forces that threaten us.
View "The Unreconstructed Man"
3. THE GODDESS (2001-2002) This piece was the most fun to do, at least in the beginning. The image came ready made after watching, what seemed to me to be 7 pharmaceutical commercials in a row, as I tried viewing the daily news on TV. I had just came back from Nepal where the wonderful mix of religions was a part of daily life-- offerings to the gods were made on almost every street corner and the mix of Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Buddhism was astonishing. Our reverence for products seemed thin by comparison. My cynicism reached a high (or low) point in this piece. After reining in my moralistic eye, I became preoccupied with artistic issues such as how to get movement into squares and how to play with the aesthetics of the negative space among the squares. The altar provided a first for me-I left the wall and dealt with the space outside the canvas-the floor.
View "The Goddess"
4.WHO'S CALLING THE SHOTS? (1999-IN PROGRESS) The subjects are popular icons-personalities and objects. The work started with the impeachment figures: Clinton, Tripp, Hyde, Monica, and Starr, and the objects-the blue dress, the cigar, and a bottle of Clorox (needless to say, not used). As time went on, so did the caricaturing: The juxtaposition of the Kosovo tragedy with the unbridled exuberance of the bull market (see Gates, Greenspan, and Martha Stewart) entered the picture. Monopoly board icons, suggest the role of chance in calling the shots as well as the luck of the draw. Finally, Charlie Chaplin took over as a "site seer", observing the collage, pensively, incredulously.
View "Who's Calling the Shots?"
What does it all mean? It's in the eye of the viewer and everybody brings their own scenario to the work: "The human comedy", "exposing of hypocrisy", "a history lesson that makes me think, that makes me cry": "a fin de siecle meditation" -gives a sense of the range of association that viewers feel when looking at the piece.
What does it mean to me? I've been playing it by eye and avoid being analytic. I go with my gut, intuition, and whatever fancies me. It feels like an amalgamation of quilting and collage, a kind of "femmage." The mix of images is arbitrary but not random. The implosion of images that attack our visual world is mimicked by the series.
This work, although "officially" finished in 2000, has been a work in progress-it is now three dimensional with several of the canvases moving away from the plane of the wall into the room.



	Lillian Cartwright was born in New York and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Queens College. She received her MA from the University of Illinois and her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She has studied and written extensively about lives over time both as a researcher and as a psychotherapist. Her interest in individuals, their subjective experiences, memory, and emotions informs her work as an artist. Cartwright has been interested in art all her life. In New York, she studied at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. In California, she attended the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts and has worked with several leading Californian watercolorists including Leah Schwartz, Helen Stanley, and Tim Clark. Her work has been exhibited in juried shows throughout California. Cartwright's watercolors and collaged water-based media work are held in many private collections nationwide. She has had several solo show in San Francisco including the University of California and the University Club. She currently divides her time between Mendocino County where she is belongs to the Mendocino Art Center and San Francisco. In San Francisco, as a member of the Teacher-Artist Organization (TAO), she is teaching in the Art With Elders Program. This program works with patients in nursing homes and provides them with art appreciation and instruction. Her work has been exhibited in juried group shows in California. Cartwright's watercolors and collaged water-based media work is held in many private collections throughout the country. Following is a brief and selected list of her recent exhibitions: 1999: University of California, San Francisco. Solo Show 1999: University Club, San Francisco. Solo Show 2000: Mindful Body: Solo Show 2000: Coleman Advocates, San Francisco: Solo Show 2002: Ardency Gallery,Oakland: Group Show TAO 2003: Office of the Mayor, Cultural Center, Oakland Group Show of Leading Painters from Oakland Galleries. Cartwright's The Dancer is featured on the show's website 2003: Chatterbox Gallery, San Francisco: Solo Show 2003: San Francisco Public Library, Jewett Gallery: Group Show 2004: Biannual Figure Drawing Collective, Mendocino, California: Group Show 2004: TAO Group Exhibition, SomArts main gallery, San Francisco, CA

	My work deals primarily with people and is, in that sense, figurative. I am interested in human behavior at all stages of the life cycle and how women and men situate themselves in physical, historical, and psychological space. Memories emerge as if they happened yesterday and there is a quixotic and ambiguous quality to some of my images: Sadness and pensiveness exist side-by-side with the trappings of celebration and gloss. Humor can take over what might otherwise be a dismal situation. When I began working full time as an artist, rather than sandwiching it in between patients and research, I concentrated on making relatively small watercolors addressing themes of memory and change. I used the grid as a primary structure and then invaded it with intruding images (SEE "Play it again Sam," "Memories," "You Must Remember This," and "Con-Nection." In February of 1999, I was ill with the flu and sat in front of the TV hours on end and watched the impeachment hearings, images of Tripp, Monica, Hyde, Clinton, and Starr roiled through my brain and a new venture began. For the next three years I turned away from watercolors and turned toward acrylics and multiple square canvases {12x12, 10x10, 5x5 and 3x3 inch} and created four large, sprawling pieces, which covered the floors and then the walls of my studio. ------All four pieces provide low key social commentary --answers are not attempted but questions are raised- the inquiry is into America-the pluralistic and contradictory nature of American life -scandals, hatred, beauty, greed, consumerism, creativity, false gods and goddesses, vulnerability, gullibility, and hope. ------From another vantage point, the pieces document a particular period of American life, as I've perceived it-and thus the canvases function as a visual diary. A brief description of the pieces follows: 1. THE DANCE (2000-2001) The thematic material concerns creativity and the artist. In this piece, Martha Graham pays homage to Emily Dickinson through her dance " The Letters". Suggestions of Dickinson's poem 'this is my letter to the world that never wrote to me" are in fragments, faintly painted into the dress of Graham. The wish to communicate through art, to try to convey a personal perspective not only characterized these two women but all artists. The counterpoint between Graham, who was an icon in her lifetime, and Dickinson, who accepted her destiny as an artist who was not to be recognized, is moving. In Dickinson's words "If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her-if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase". View "The Dance" 2. THE UNRECONSTRUCTURED MAN: (2000) This piece was done one year before 9/11 and thus is prescient. I was intrigued by the Middle East, Central Asia, and Islamic Fundamentalism and was reading books on these subjects (Simon Reeve's "The Modern Jackal" and Ahmed Rashid's Taliban). From the Southern Poverty Law Center, I received literature on hate crimes in the United States. The Columbine shootings had taken place and I began ruminating on the deep roots of rage. I obsessed on the men who committed crimes against humanity in the name of a "higher" calling. The icon of the world trade building was inspired by Yousef's 1993 attempt to destroy the building, not the 9/11 tragedy. The NRA's position on guns added fuel to the fire of my inquiry. The 3x3 images of the poison oak and wild flowers that run through the piece remind us toxic forces have been with us always and are not just a product of contemporary times. ------Miles Davis is the "site seer" or "sound seer" of this collage. Quincy Troupe's "Miles and Me" offered the title "The Unreconstructed Man". Troupe saw Davis as a complicated, complex man whose aloofness, scorn, and destructive behaviors stood side-by-side with musical genius and creativity. Davis rejected conformity to an "Uncle Tom world" and at times became the" Prince of Darkness." The "axis of evil" is too simple way of viewing the forces that threaten us. View "The Unreconstructed Man" 3. THE GODDESS (2001-2002) This piece was the most fun to do, at least in the beginning. The image came ready made after watching, what seemed to me to be 7 pharmaceutical commercials in a row, as I tried viewing the daily news on TV. I had just came back from Nepal where the wonderful mix of religions was a part of daily life-- offerings to the gods were made on almost every street corner and the mix of Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Buddhism was astonishing. Our reverence for products seemed thin by comparison. My cynicism reached a high (or low) point in this piece. After reining in my moralistic eye, I became preoccupied with artistic issues such as how to get movement into squares and how to play with the aesthetics of the negative space among the squares. The altar provided a first for me-I left the wall and dealt with the space outside the canvas-the floor. View "The Goddess" 4.WHO'S CALLING THE SHOTS? (1999-IN PROGRESS) The subjects are popular icons-personalities and objects. The work started with the impeachment figures: Clinton, Tripp, Hyde, Monica, and Starr, and the objects-the blue dress, the cigar, and a bottle of Clorox (needless to say, not used). As time went on, so did the caricaturing: The juxtaposition of the Kosovo tragedy with the unbridled exuberance of the bull market (see Gates, Greenspan, and Martha Stewart) entered the picture. Monopoly board icons, suggest the role of chance in calling the shots as well as the luck of the draw. Finally, Charlie Chaplin took over as a "site seer", observing the collage, pensively, incredulously. View "Who's Calling the Shots?" What does it all mean? It's in the eye of the viewer and everybody brings their own scenario to the work: "The human comedy", "exposing of hypocrisy", "a history lesson that makes me think, that makes me cry": "a fin de siecle meditation" -gives a sense of the range of association that viewers feel when looking at the piece. What does it mean to me? I've been playing it by eye and avoid being analytic. I go with my gut, intuition, and whatever fancies me. It feels like an amalgamation of quilting and collage, a kind of "femmage." The mix of images is arbitrary but not random. The implosion of images that attack our visual world is mimicked by the series. This work, although "officially" finished in 2000, has been a work in progress-it is now three dimensional with several of the canvases moving away from the plane of the wall into the room.