Bio
Dr. Lisa M. Williamson is a painter and writer based in Memphis, TN. ​Williamson received her MFA from the Memphis College of Art and her PhD from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. Recently participating in the Arctic Circle Expedition Residency, Williamson is looking forward to her upcoming residency at the Golden Foundation. She is a professor at the University of Memphis.
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My practice centers on an expressive and immediate modality of painting where I use my hands, brushes, sticks, and other objects to explore the transmutation of emotion through abstraction. Drawing on close observation of the natural world, I see the landscape as an unstable subject that serves as a shifting field of relation—an ecology of forces that parallels interior experience.
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Weathered forms, eroded coastlines, melted ice and recurrent patterns of disintegration and regeneration are the conceptual anchors through which my work contends with vulnerability, endurance, and renewal. Nature operates not simply as imagery, but as a way of understanding how bodies and environments register time, pressure, and change. ​
After witnessing the impact of global warming in the most fragile location on earth, Svalbard, Norway, I felt both awe and grief. I think about relationships and moments and dreams that are not preserved, and how avoiding painful emotions prevents us from protecting what matters most. My paintings toggle between reminder and remembrance, the monumental and the memorialized.
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photo by P. Behnke
Education
2021 PhD in Aesthetic Theory and Philosophy as Applied to the Visual Arts, IDSVA, Europe and U.S.
2015 MFA Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN
2001 BFA Cum Laude, Painting, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN
Awards/Grants/Fellowships (Honors/Scholarships/Residencies)
2026 The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Residency, New Berlin, NY
2025 The Arctic Circle Expedition Residency, Svalbard, Norway
2024 Faculty Seed Grant for The Arctic Circle Expedition Residency
2024 Artist-in-Residence (A.I.R.) Studio Paducah, Paducah, KY
2023 Urban Art Commission Permanent Collection Purchase
2023 Crosstown Arts Residency, Crosstown Concourse, Memphis, TN
2023 A.I.R. Studio Paducah, Paducah, KY
2019 Marfa House Residency, Marfa, TX
2016 Art+Bio Collaborative Residency, Puerto Rico
Select Exhibitions (*solo)
2026 Upcoming Oct. 3-31 What Remains Visible, Marshall Arts, Memphis, TN
2026 Gallery MC, NYC, NY
2026 Makowski Gallery/Rosebud Gallery, NYC, NY
2025/26 Polishing the Stone, ShapeShifter Gallery, Memphis, TN
2025 Drawn Together, The Ned, Jackson, TN, curated by Louis Giberson
2025 Lines That Move, Marhsall Arts, Memphis, TN (with Paul Behnke and Jodi Brewer), curated by Paul Behnke
2024 Something Solid, Marshall Arts, Memphis, TN (with Paul Behnke, Jodi Brewer, and Pam McDonnell), curated by Paul Behnke
2024 Moveable Collection Exhibit, The Urban Art Commission, Memphis, TN
2023 Cheers to the Holidays, L. Ross Gallery, Memphis, TN
2023 Paper Palooza, L. Ross Gallery, Memphis, TN
2021 Faculty Show, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN, curated by Richard Lou
2018 It’s About Time, Levy Gallery, Memphis, TN*
2017 Four Knowledge, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN, curated by Ken Hall
2016 Future Talk, The Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI, curated by Heather Duffy
2015 Something Old, Something New, Memphis Theological Seminary, Memphis, TN*
2015 ArtPrize, Monroe Community Church, Grand Rapids, MI, curated by Steve Fridsma
2015 Black and White, Colors of Humanity Art Gallery
2015 MFA Thesis Show, Nesin Gallery, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN
Select Collaborations
2025 Embustero by Richard Lou, Fogelman Galleries at University of Memphis, Memphis, TN (as part of team of illustrators for Lou’s graphic book Embustero)
2024 Richard Lou Exhibition, Art Gallery, Union University (as an illustrator for his graphic book Embustero, created handwritten wall text)
2024 As Good as Gold: 50 Years of the MFA at Clemson, Clemson, SC. Featuring artist Richard Lou with my illustrations laser-cut over Richard Lou’s text for Embustero
2022 Evicted, Benjamin Hooks Library, Memphis, TN, (national traveling exhibit with renter’s rights attorney Jamie Johnson and artist Robin Salant)
2019 All Things Are Collaboration: An Anti-Solo Show, Stock and Belle, Memphis, TN (collaboration with Lacy Mitcham)
2017 Art | Race | Violence: A Collaborative Response, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN, in collaboration with Lurlynn Franklin, curated by Richard Lou and Dr. Ernestine Jenkins
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Publications
2026 "Kairos," Chronostasis, The Cassiopeia Review, Issue 2.
Select Public Commissions
2024 Public Art Commission: Consent, installation at The Hospitality Hub Hotel, awarded by the Hospitality Hub and the Urban Art Commission, Memphis, TN
2022 Corporate Commission: Rock Gnome Lichen, scrim panel installation at the One Hotel, Nashville, TN (part of a selection of artists working with Richard Lou)
Panels/Lectures/Presentations/Workshops/Artist Talks
2026 Upcoming: Drawing South Live Podcast at SECAC, hosted by Mike Windy
2026 Professional Practices, ShapeShifter Art School and Gallery, Memphis, TN
2025 Artist Talk for Trans-Cen-Der Art at Equity Gallery, NYC, NY, hosted by Meer Musa
2025 Apathy/Emergency: The Poetics of Data, SECAC, Panel Chair and Presenter
2025 “Don’t Go Baroque!” for Women in the Arts, Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Panel chair, Panel members: Tracy Lauritzen Wright, Lakeisha Edwards, Amy-Beth Rice, Phyllis Boger
2025 “Make Ink!” The Metal Museum, Memphis, TN, hosted by Community Outreach Director Dr. Lu Auz 2024 Art workshop at the Whitehaven Library for the Urban Art Commission’s Moveable Collection Series, Whitehaven, TN, hosted by UAC project manager Richard Echols
2024 “Southern Monuments,” Munch and Learn, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN, hosted by Community Outreach Director Lacy Mitcham
2024 Art workshop at the Hospitality Hotel for unhoused women and children, Memphis, TN
2023 Artist Talk, Crosstown Arts Green Room 2023 Lecture “From Abuse to Transformation: The Interpretative Work of Counter- Confederate Structures,” SUNY Potsdam, Potsdam, NY, hosted by Dr. Sheila Neal
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Exhibitions Curated
2026 Upcoming: What Remains Visible, Marshall Arts, Memphis, TN
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Juror
2026 University of Tennessee Martin Student Exhibition, UTM, TN
2025 Delta Threads Quilt Show, Cotton Museum, Memphis, TN
2024 High School Congressional Exhibition, Georgia Southern University, GA