Margaret Lazzari

Margaret Lazzari's new body of work, entitled "Wild Biology", is meant to embody and communicate the robust, wild exuberance of the biological world. In this work, Lazzari makes the point that, in reality, our apparently solid world is mostly a void that contains dispersed specks of matter animated by vibrating energy. In developing a visual equivalent for this fundamental quality of the physical world, Lazzari, who's past reputation is based largely on her figurative compositions, looked for natural phenomena that have an open “architecture” or network quality, such as star clusters; aerial views of landforms; erosion patterns; waves in liquid; turbulence; entangled plants; falling autumn leaves; and flocks of perched birds. In the process of developing this new, mainly non-figurative vocabulary, Lazzari has also employed fractal diagrams and line drawings from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. By layering these elements, she creates complex paintings with rich coloring, rhythmically repeating imagery, and dense compositions -- paintings which tell the story of a natural world, alive and mysterious with an intricate network of systems and a mind of it's own. Lazzari was Born in St. Louis in 1953, and has taught painting at USC since 1986. She is a past recipient of the College Art Association's Distinguished Artist's Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 2000 she was the subject of a retrospective exhibition originating at the Riverside Art Museum, Riverside CA. Cenote, mixed media on panel, 20x16 Pomegranates, mixed media on panel, 20x16 Agave, acrylic on canvas, 28x22 Red Leonardo, acrylic on canvas, 28x22 Moving Water, mixed media on panel, 28x22 Still Life with Pomegranates, mixed media on panel, 28x22 Lyrical, acrylic on canvas, 66x52 Aqueous, acrylic on canvas, 75x68