About
Natalie Lanese’s paintings, collages, and installations are a visual jolt—layered, rhythmic, and unapologetically bold—transforming walls and spaces into optical experiences. Lanese has exhibited nationally at MOCA Tucson, the Akron Art Museum, and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA, and internationally in Iceland and Italy. Her large-scale public artworks can be seen in San Diego, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Cleveland. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings and she is a two-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.
Lanese has participated in residencies at Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, Otis College of Art + Design, and SIM Residency in Reykjavík, Iceland, among others. Her work is included in several collections including Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, The Putnam Collection at Case Western Reserve University, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She earned her MFA from Pratt Institute, an MA from CWRU and the Cleveland Institute of Art, and a BA from Xavier University. She lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.
Statement
I make paintings and installations that hold tension between art and craft, mastery and awkwardness, and two and three dimensions. Through these contrasts, my work speaks the language of modern abstraction while playfully throwing a punch at outmoded ideals.
Drawing inspiration from Dazzle Camouflage, which used formal painting techniques for naval defense during WWI, my work employs DayGlo palettes and high-contrast, layered optical patterns. These tactics confound and disrupt perception—of surface, space, material, and form. I also turn to comedy for inspiration. Laughter, like camouflage, can disguise, protect, or reveal, yet it is universally moving.
I follow a lineage of irreverent artists who embraced levity in their work: the DADAists’ absurd collages, Oldenburg’s hilariously limp soft sculptures, and Steve Martin’s goofy vaudeville. Their spirit of play informs my own, as I merge craft skills honed in my youth–through coloring, sewing, Play-Doh, and collage–with formal painting and sculptural processes.