Lisa Brice

Lisa Brice (born 1968) is a South African painter and visual artist from Cape Town. She lives in London and cites some of her influences as her experiences growing up in South Africa during a time of political upheaval, and from time spent living and working in Trinidad. From 1988—1991 Brice worked as printmaking assistant to artist Sue Williamson.

Brice started out working with printing, photography, video and other mixed media. After moving to the UK, she began to work predominantly in oils and canvas or paper and is now better known as a painter. Together they set up CCA7 (Caribbean Contemporary Arts).

Exhibitions

Since 1993 Brice has had over 20 solo exhibitions in South Africa and around Europe, and almost 100 group exhibitions around the world.

In 2016 Duro Olowu included Brice in Making and Unmaking exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre in London. The following year Salon 94 gallery in New York exhibited Boundary Girl, an exhibition of large canvasses and small gouaches, the smaller works having been displayed earlier that year in London.

In 2018 Brice exhibited at Tate Britain as part of Art Now, exhibitions for new and emerging artists. The work featured "recast female subjects from art historical paintings, photographs and the media into new environments, imbuing them with a newfound sense of self possession." Many of the paintings show the women rendered in a rich blue paint which echoes Brice's Trinidadian experiences of carnival, in which revellers known as 'blue devils' paint themselves blue for anonymity. Art Now included two new paintings not previously exhibited, one based on John Everett Millais's Ophelia (Millais) with Ophelia standing upright holding a cigarette, the other based on Parting at Morning by William Rothenstein with the emaciated model repainted, filled out, also smoking a cigarette.

Her work is held in collections around the world, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Johannesburg Art Gallery, The Whitworth, the High Commission of South Africa, London and the private collection of Sindika Dokolo.