Lisa
Traxler

“If those two colours sing together, if that shape pushes against the other shape and creates something…”

People often assume that my work begins with geometry. In fact, it begins much earlier than that. It begins with looking.

I’ve never thought of geometry as a system that I impose on the work. It’s simply the language through which I understand relationships — between colour and form, light and shadow, surface and space, painting and sculpture. It’s almost how my brain thinks.

I’ve always been drawn to abstraction because it allows those relationships to remain open. I’m not trying to tell a viewer what to see or how to look. Instead, I’m interested in creating a space where colour, shape and form can be experienced rather than explained. If two colours sing together, if one shape pushes against another and creates a sense of movement or tension, then something begins to happen. That’s what I’m searching for. It isn’t about recognising an object. It’s about recognising a feeling.

My work moves continually between painting and sculpture, between intuition and precision. Each sculpture begins as a painted surface. The early stages are instinctive and exploratory, but gradually the work enters another language: measurement, fabrication, and precision. I work with full sheets of painted plywood, developing forms that are eventually cut and assembled into sculptural structures. There is a moment when the painted surface ceases to be an image and begins to occupy space — allowing these flat-pack constructions to slot together and move between disassembly and assembly, the flatness of the painted plane into three-dimensional form. This puzzle-like process requires each component to perform a precise role, yet no single element is sufficient on its own. I never entirely know how a sculpture will resolve itself until all of its parts are fabricated and assembled. Only then do I discover if it has found its own internal balance — does it sing in its rebirth?

My early training in fashion, where flat pattern pieces were transformed into garments, continues to inform the way I think about construction, volume and spatial relationships. Architecture has also become central to my practice, not simply as an influence but as a way of living and observing. Building homes, living alongside architectural practice and observing how light behaves across materials have all become part of the way I see. A former Second World War radar bunker became a particularly important catalyst. Its weathered concrete, shifting shadows and powerful sense of presence led me to think differently about geometry — not as abstraction alone, but as something capable of holding time through memory, atmosphere and history.

Research is an integral part of my practice. Discovering First World War dazzle camouflage revealed another way that geometry could transform perception. I was fascinated by the audacity of those painted ships, where bold geometric forms were used not to decorate but to disrupt understanding. That idea, that geometry can alter the way we perceive space, movement and form, continues to resonate throughout my work.

People often describe my sculptures as simple. I understand why. Their forms appear economical. What remains unseen are the months of research, maquette making, painting, sanding, measuring, fabrication and refinement that allow each work to arrive at that simplicity. I’m interested in distilling complexity rather than displaying it.

One question I was asked while preparing this profile was whether I work with rules. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I don’t. I think instead in terms of chapters. Each body of work grows from the last, carrying certain ideas forward while opening new questions. That feels much closer to the reality of my practice than following a fixed set of rules.

Looking back over recent years, I can see that periods of intense making have been followed by periods of transition and reflection. Rather than seeing those quieter moments as interruptions, I’ve come to understand them as essential to the work itself. They create the space in which new ideas begin to emerge.

Ultimately, my work isn’t trying to explain geometry. It uses geometry to understand relationships — between materials, histories, colours, forms and ways of seeing. If the work invites someone to look and to discover those relationships for themselves, then I feel it has done what I hoped it might do.

Geometry is a lived experience for me — through architecture, landscape, fabric, memory, history, light and the physical act of making and assembling.

Lisa Traxler, July 2026