Nashville, TN – May 1, 2012. American born/Venezuelan-raised artist Lisa Rivas has always been intrigued by color, pattern, and beautiful things. Pursuing those interests Lisa earned educational degrees and professional credentials in surface design, graphic design, and fine arts painting.

In developing her unique style and methodology, Lisa merged her two loves—surface design and painting. Her jewel-like colors, expressive fine line, and creative layering of patterns and shapes inspired by Nature captured the attention of galleries and collectors and provided Lisa a successful career in the world of professional galleries and museum exhibitions.

With her commitment to SURTEX this year, Lisa is shifting her business focus to the art licensing arena and looks forward to introducing her art to an entirely new audience. For her Surtex debut , Lisa is presenting three collections that showcase her inventive creativity and artistic skills guaranteed to mesmerize and delight visitors to her booth #463.

“Our lives are so full of things,” muses Lisa,
“why shouldn’t they be truly beautiful, too?”

LAS BOTÁNICAS was the theme of Lisa’s solo painting exhibition in 2002 at the Memphis Botanical Gardens that turned her focus to plant and floral themes and evolved into a continuing series of imagery for the artist. In these small format works, seeds, roots, stems, leaves, buds, flowers, and fruit take center stage, surrounded by an intricate border of repeated details. Each work is rendered in luscious color, expressing Lisa’s love of deep design inherent in Nature’s endless abundance and beauty, while demonstrating the artist’s signature wax-line drawing style in using the batik tjanting tool.

The TERRA-MATERA Collection is created from Lisa’s hands-on experimentation with materials where playfulness and imagination come together. This year’s portfolio features two unusual themes: Mudpies—which really do start out as down-in-the-dirt mud patties—become earthy, textured surfaces teaming with color and liveliness. Lisa’s Bug designs begin as meticulously crafted tiles of fused glass, that are translated into images composed of jewel-like hues and intricate patterns. Honey bees, beetles, butterflies, dragonflies, lacebugs, stink bugs, and grasshoppers all provide fascinating transitions of line, shape, and color.

Thirty years worth of creative work is the wellspring of Lisa’s FLYING COLORS Collection, named after her blog where she posted an original artwork every day for the first year of publication. Ranging from colorfully energetic to quietly ethereal, each surface design testifies to Lisa’s deep imaginative reservoir and mastery of vector art and pattern tesselations.

With these three diverse collections, Lisa Rivas has created fresh, marketable, sophisticated surface designs for art licensing across all products. Her ready-to-go collections are available for licensing or can be adapted for product lines. She welcomes the opportunity to develop customized designs or collaborate with manufacturers to meet their needs and specifications. Commissions are always welcome, too. Eager to meet art buyers, licensees, manufacturers, and artist peers, she looks forward to greeting many visitors to her SURTEX corner booth #463. 

Nashville, TN – March, 2012

Venezuelan-raised artist Lisa Rivas announced today that she will be a first-time exhibitor at this year’s SURTEX show held May 20–22 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Lisa Rivas may be a SURTEX newbie, but she’s a seasoned practitioner of creative thinking, surface design know-how, and real-world computer skills.

Visitors to her booth #463 will be mesmerized and delighted with Lisa’s collections composed of jewel-like color, expressive fine line, and creative layering of patterns and shapes inspired by Nature.

“I’ll be presenting four collections at SURTEX,” relates the artist. “Each one is distinctive in theme, style, and how I created it. Some are created digitally, some by hand. Yet each is founded in my appreciation of the deep beauty and wonders of Nature.”

The artist has always been intrigued by color, design, and grace. Pursuing those interests earned Lisa several degrees and professional credentials: a Graphic Design degree from the Instituto de Diseño Hans Neumann in Caracas, Venezuela; a BFA in Fiber from the Memphis College of Art in Tennessee; and graduate work in Textiles at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville, TN, and in Painting at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Eventually, Lisa merged her two loves—surface design and painting—that captured the attention of galleries and collectors, leading to a successful career in the fine arts world of professional galleries and museum exhibitions. Along the way, Lisa added computer expertise to her skill set, opening new possibilities for creating her original imagery.

Lisa’s belief that motifs from her artworks could be used as surface designs came to fruition most recently in 2011. Liberty Bottleworks in Yakima, WA, licensed six of her designs. They were best sellers for the company; and in 2012 the company requested two additional Rivas designs for production.

Lisa has been a visitor to SURTEX on two previous occasions, most recently the 2011 show, and realized that “SURTEX is definitely the ‘big time’.” As for her first foray as a SURTEX exhibitor, the artist says, “I’m certainly excited about the prospect of presenting my work at the Show, meeting art buyers, licensees, manufacturers, and artist peers, and getting my foot in the door.” And then she adds, “And I will be really thrilled to see my art on products, out in the real world.”