We are so excited to announce that Lisa Moriarty has joined ALG Fine Art as a Resident Artist, and that her debut solo art show, “Breathing Space,” opens on Saturday, April 25 2026. This one is going to be something really special. Here is everything you need to know.
A NEW VOICE AT ALG FINE ART
Why We Are So Thrilled to Welcome Lisa to the Gallery
At ALG Fine Art, we are always looking for artists whose work makes people stop. Not just look, but actually stop, step closer, and feel something shift. When we first encountered Lisa Moriarty’s work, that is exactly what happened.
Lisa is a mixed-media artist working in encaustic wax, silk, organza and paper. Her pieces sit somewhere between assemblage, textile and installation, and they are unlike anything else we have shown in this gallery. They are quiet in the most powerful way. They invite you in rather than demand your attention. And once you are in, it is very hard to leave.
We are beyond delighted to announce that Lisa has officially joined ALG Fine Art as a Resident Artist. Her debut solo show here, “Breathing Space,” opens on Saturday, 26 April 2026 and runs through to Saturday, June 27 2026. It is going to be one of the most beautiful art shows we have ever hosted, and we want you to be part of it.
ABOUT LISA MORIARTY
The Story Behind the Artist
Lisa’s path to art is not the one you might expect, and that is part of what makes her work so layered and so human.
She started her career as an occupational therapist. For years, she worked in hospital settings, including cardiac care, burn units, NICU and ICU wards, and a county hospital where she saw some of the most challenging cases imaginable. She worked on the AIDS unit during its earliest years in the 1990s. She worked with micro-premature babies, born as small as one to two pounds, supporting them and their families after discharge from the NICU. Later, after the birth of her twin sons, both of whom have significant disabilities, she moved into working with middle schoolers in the school district near her home.
OT, as she describes it, is rooted in process, task analysis and sensory regulation. It is about balance. About helping people find rhythm in the everyday, manage overstimulation and under-stimulation, and maintain a sense of control through structured activity. You can hear all of that in how Lisa talks about her studio practice. The connection is not incidental. It is foundational.
It was after the birth of her twins that Lisa began taking art classes as a way to slow down. She gravitated toward textile and tactile work rather than traditional painting, which made sense given her background. She tried weaving, stitching, and watercolour. Then she took an introductory class in encaustic, the ancient wax-based medium she now works in almost exclusively. And everything changed.
She recalls overheating the wax in one of her early pieces and watching the paper lift and curl away from the surface. Instead of starting over, she kept going. She did it again on purpose. And slowly, over many sessions, a completely individual way of working developed from that single moment of so-called mistake.
That is the kind of artist Lisa is. Patient. Attentive. Someone who knows that the most interesting things happen when you pay close enough attention to what the work is trying to tell you.
HER WORK AND HER PROCESS
What Lisa Makes and How She Makes It
Encaustic is one of the oldest painting mediums in existence. It is beeswax combined with damar resin and natural pigments, applied to a rigid panel and fused with heat. What makes it so compelling is its translucency. Every layer remains visible through the layers above it, building a kind of depth that you cannot get with oil or acrylic. It is slow work. It is not a medium that can be rushed.
Lisa works with encaustic alongside silk, organza and paper, all three as distinct materials, not combined into one. She builds each piece from hundreds of individually hand-cut elements, pieces of paper and fabric that she cuts and prepares before a single composition begins. She layers and fuses them gradually, applying wax in passes, heating and adhering, stepping back, then returning. Some pieces take weeks. Some take months.
What is striking about her process is how closely it mirrors the things she spent years doing as an OT. The repetition creates rhythm. The rhythm creates a sense of predictability and safety. The studio becomes, as she describes it, its own kind of regulated environment. A place where she knows what comes next. A place where she can breathe.
The Influence of the California Coast
Lisa grew up in Northern California. Her family’s roots run deep in the region, her grandparents worked in the fruit fields of what was then called the Valley of Hearts Delight (now Silicon Valley). The coast, the landscape, and the light of Northern California are not just a backdrop in her work. It is a primary language.
She is specific about this. It is Northern California she is drawing from, not the Southern California of sun and beaches. The Northern California coast is defined by fog. By a veiled quality of light. By the sense that things are there but not quite fully visible. You know the water is there. You know the horizon is there. But they are softened, filtered, only partially revealed. That quality shows up everywhere in her work.
Blue appears constantly in her pieces, and she is clear about why. For her, blue carries memory. It carries calm and safety and the emotional imprint of the coast. White carries the fog. These are not decorative choices. They are deeply personal ones.
When the Work Starts to Lead Itself
One of the most beautiful things Lisa shared with us when we spoke was what happens at a certain point in the making of a piece. The repetition becomes intuitive. She stops making decisions and starts paying attention. Patterns emerge that she never planned. The density shifts in ways she did not expect. The piece begins to guide its own completion.
She describes it as almost like listening. A calm, concentrated state where she is responding rather than directing. Where time changes its quality, and the work becomes the whole of her focus.
The finished pieces also do something quite extraordinary. They cast shadows. And those shadows are not a byproduct. They are part of the composition. As the light in the room shifts, the work shifts with it. You can see the same piece at 10 in the morning and at 4 in the afternoon, and it will not look identical. The work extends beyond its physical edge. It keeps going.
BREATHING SPACE
What to Expect From the Show
The show is called “Breathing Space,” and when Lisa explained what that title means to her, we immediately knew it was right.
It is about the literal space in the work. The gaps between each organza element and the wall behind it. The space between density and openness. The way translucency keeps air and light present and visible inside the piece itself. It is about material space.
But it is also about emotional space. The pause. The quiet. The room to think. The visual exhale that happens when you stand in front of something that does not ask anything of you, that simply offers you somewhere to land.
Lisa was asked what she hopes people will feel when they walk into the gallery. Her answer was immediate. Restful. Peaceful. Approachable. She talked about it being a soft place to land. She said she does not need everyone to make the same connections she makes, to see the California coast or recognise the fog. She just wants people to stop. To notice the quiet. To feel something settle.
In a moment when a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated, we think that matters more than ever. This is an art show that is genuinely good for you.
The Series You Will See
“Breathing Space” brings together three bodies of work, each built through the same core process but arriving at very different places in terms of scale, color and density.
The Fragment Series is perhaps the most intimate. Lisa works with various papers, hand-cutting each piece individually before building them into layered compositions fused with pigmented wax. These are works about memory. About the way recollection is not a single clear image but a gathering of partial impressions, overlapping, some more vivid than others. They range from small, intimate pieces to larger works.
The Tide Pool Series is a set of sixteen small encaustic panels, each 4 by 4 inches, in blues and whites. They can be hung as a complete grid or collected individually. Together, they read as a single breathing field. Separately, each one holds a universe.
The Wave Series and New Works are the largest pieces in the show and possibly the most arresting. Lisa works in this series with encaustic alongside silk and organza as two separate fabrics, layered and fused onto canvas. The scale here is significant. One piece measures 6 feet by 8 feet. The newest and largest work in the entire collection, which Lisa completed just this week, measures 8 feet by 10 feet and is rendered in white with subtle hints of blue. Lisa described it to us as the fog slowly beginning to burn off. It will be the largest piece in “Breathing Space,” and we cannot wait to see it on the wall.
THE CLOSING EVENT
A Very Special Way to Close the Show
On Saturday, June 27 2026, the final day of Breathing Space, we will be hosting a breathwork and meditation session inside the gallery while Lisa’s work is hung. It feels like the most natural possible way to close a show built around the idea of breathing space.
We will be sharing full details and registration closer to the date. If this sounds like your kind of afternoon, keep an eye on your inbox and on our social channels.
COME AND SEE IT
How to Be Part of Breathing Space
“Breathing Space” opens on Saturday, April 25 2026, with a private opening night preview. If you would like to join us, register for your ticket HERE.
The show runs through to Saturday, June 27 2026, and the gallery is open during regular hours throughout. All works in the show are available to collect, and private viewings can be arranged on request. If you have been looking for a piece that brings genuine calm into your home or workspace, we think you are going to find it here.
Lisa’s work has been placed in the Fairmont, the Ritz-Carlton, and private collections across the country. This is your opportunity to bring a piece of that into your own space.
We are so proud to welcome Lisa Moriarty to ALG Fine Art. This is the beginning of something really wonderful, and we are glad you are here for it.
