What to do when one comes across an outmoded pile of geriatric, vintage coin-operated horses in an extreme state of disrepair? Well, if one is Lisa Brawn, one gleefully purchases all 30 and reimagines them in various states of high-tech equine fabulousness.

Eight coin-operated horses that stood in front of Woolworths, Woodwards and Kresge’s between the 1950s and 1980s have been transformed into a solar-powered art installation.

Calgary-based artist Lisa Brawn has been experimenting with primarily figurative, portrait genre painted woodcut blocks for over twenty years and has a knack for turning alternative venues in the city into gallery and project spaces. She also has a very interesting creative process, as you’ll find out in today’s profile…

These are just stunning! Stunning! I certainly wouldn’t mind owning one of those fantastic Zappas...

L'artiste albertaine Lisa Brawn a puisé dans son enfance pour créer une oeuvre singulière composée de huit chevaux mécaniques propulsés par l'énergie solaire et installés au beau milieu d'une prairie près du Leighton Art Centre, au sud de Calgary.

Faux-printeresting strikes again (and it isn’t even Tuesday)! Lisa Brawn makes relief sculpture/paintings that build on the woodcut tradition. Brawn carves a mean block but where most would turn to a press and crank out an edition, Brawn paints the block and, voilà , a one-of-a-kind object.

As pastagens da província de Alberta, no Canadá, ganharam novos e reluzentes moradores após cavalos de brinquedos, que ficaram na frente de lojas de conveniência entre a década de 50 e 80 foram “soltos” como parte de um projeto artístico da canadense Lisa Brawn chamado “Helios”.

Handcrafted in small batches in Okotoks, Alberta, Lovebird Gin is a refined, very smooth gin that would be happy in any martini. Produced in a gluten free facility, Tippa is an environmentally responsible nano distiller.

Lisa Brawn is a Calgary based artist specializing in painted woodcut blocks. Her work is in public collections such as The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary Civic Art Collection, and The University of Lethbridge collection, as well as in private collections across Canada, Europe, and the United States.

Lisa Brawn is an artist from Calgary, Alberta, who carves and paints woodcuts, usually using salvaged hundred year old Douglas fir. She doesn't make prints from them, just the woodcuts themselves. They are bright, graphic, one-of-a-kind pieces of folky pop art. 

Brawn draws on imagery from 20th century popular culture, including silent film stars, cowboys, 1970s television personalities, heroes and villains, international icons and symbols of Canadiana, rendering her subjects in hundreds of carved lines that are then painted.

Rather than anonymous strangers, my sentimental preference is to relate to the women in the images as Aunties and Sisters and Moms. This year I decided that the world needs more portraits of women, and so I give you MUMSHO.

“I’ve hit a vein. I’ve got my medium. I’ve got my genre. I don’t have to reinvent it when I work at it. I can just do it,” says Calgary artist Lisa Brawn about her woodcuts. 

Calgary artist Lisa Brawn creates woodcuts that use portraiture and images, primarily from popular culture, to reflect inspirations she finds in gender archetypes, propaganda and everyday camp and nostalgia.

A series of her wild bird woodcut blocks were displayed through the Calgary bridge banner project and a series of Alberta wildlife woodcuts are currently displayed on banners for Calgary Parks. Brawn was recently commissioned to produce a wall of woodblocks for Festival Hall in Calgary.

The artwork of Lisa Brawn appears in the TREX exhibition Portraiture.

Lines and Colors is a blog about painting, drawing, sketching, illustration, comics, cartoons, webcomics, art history, concept art, gallery art, digital art, artist tools and techniques, motion graphics, animation, sci-fi and fantasy illustration, paleo art, storyboards, matte painting, 3d graphics and anything else I find visually interesting. If it has lines and/or colors, it's fair game.

Lisa Brawn, Calgary artist, has developed a herd of eight coin-operated mechanical horses into a solar powered sculptural installation. 

The seven horses of Helios, a temporary, functioning art installation outside the Leighton Art Centre near Millarville, will soon be put out to pasture ahead of winter’s arrival.

Organized by Glenbow
Curated by Katherine Ylitalo

The fifth and final installment in Glenbow's groundbreaking survey of regional art, Made in Calgary: The 2000s reflects the energy and diversity of the arts community in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

For this dinner series, Brawn is creating wood blocks that will be used to stamp designs onto table runners, inspired by a variety of Prairie wildlife. 

To any old Joe Sixpack, famed indie-film characters such as Zero Moustafa or Richie Tenenbaum and exotic birds like an indigo bunting or a Carolina chickadee would seem to be far-out foes, having literally nothing in common. But to nature-inspired pop artist Lisa Brawn, a showdown between them was inevitable.

Dedicated to exhibiting lowbrow and outsider art, the JEM Gallery is a cheerful and inclusive place. Its walls, shelves, and glass cases are chock full of easy-to-read paintings, prints, drawings, small sculptures, and jewellery.

The mysterious and wonderful woodcutter of iconic faces, birds and cult figures is back. Lisa Brawn, celebrated Calgary artist debuts new works under the title of Errata Slip Milksnakes at Art Central’s Axis Contemporary Art Gallery

What do you do when you find yourself with five truckloads of salvaged century-old rough Douglas Fir beams? Lisa Brawn turned them into amazing woodcuts, mainly referenced from popular culture and painted in bold, vibrant colours. I recently got the chance to see a few up close and was really taken aback by the depth and texture in her work, which can be lost in print or online.

The United Congress exhibition at The New Gallery was partly a retrospective of both their accomplishments and criticisms, partly a reunión, and partly a critique of other recent surveys of art from Calgary in the ’80s and ’90s— which have tended to eschew art’s position as a historical tool of social revolution to focus primarily on its formal qualities.

"Helios. A solar-powered, interactive, kinetic sculptural installation consisting of eight large scale repurposed vintage mechanical horses running wild across the breathtaking prairie landscape at Leighton Art Centre.

The horses were released (note: until 13 November 2016) onto the 80 acre property in celebration of Alberta Culture Days."

Book cover by Lisa Brawn.