The Work

 

As a child, I would sit and draw ocean sunsets repeatedly with pastels and crayons. I was utterly captivated by the profound emotions that sunset colors create deep within the unexpressed parts of the soul. At that age, there were no words to understand the feeling—there was only color.

​

When I later learned to draw the human form, I became fascinated by gesture drawings and the way the body contorts and moves, particularly when dancers modeled for us. Yet, after graduating with my BFA, I struggled to see how I could incorporate my love for the fluid human figure due to my perception that I needed to create deep profound religious art.

​

So I chose to work with those heavy philosophical and theological themes, creating complex spiritual metaphors. Eventually, the sheer seriousness of these subjects, and the amount of research I put into the weighed me down. I needed a creative break.

​

During a visualization meditation, I imagined living near the ocean and waking early to capture the sunrise. The imagery triggered a flood of memories. I remembered what I used to draw as a child, and more importantly, why. I realized that over the years, I had collected hundreds of thousands of photos of clouds, painting them over and over purely in my mind. I remembered the thrill of working with unadulterated, rich, and vibrant color. I recalled my figure painting classes, where I would deliberately substitute realistic skin tones with pure, vivid hues. Experimenting with line color, transparency and surface, pushing the boundaries of traditional representation without going to abstract.

​

This sparked a new journey and a fresh start. I returned to my past to push myself forward, embracing a world of unneutralized color. By combining these lifelong loves, I found a liberated, living voice—one that sings to the soul and invokes its own spiritual abstraction. A return to the self.

​

Personal Journey

 

Lisa Madsen started as a brand line of L Aerin Collett Fine Art, but as I have allowed myself the freedom to express within myself the raw, unrestrained want of creation (the very thing I urge and fight for others) I find that it is not only a brand but a re-birth and a return to self. The irony of returning to a name long forgotten does not escape me.

​

I was born Lisa Madsen. At age 12 I was convinced that I needed to be adopted by a step-father and that if I chose this, I would get to choose a middle name, which I wanted so very badly. At such a young age I had already experienced a profound amount of various abuses from circumstances that arose due to the divorce of my parents. I already resented who I was, my name, my gender, my identity. I thought having a new name would make a difference. But I never went by Aerin until after I was divorced and returned to art school. After my second divorce, I choose to take on my maternal grandmothers maiden name, Collett. She had always wanted to be an artist, but because of her gender and her culture she could only choose motherhood, and the duties of a wife, or feel guilty if she didn't. I especially connected to her plight. I have had to fight to be, to have, and to work as an artist. The patterns of abuse followed through out y life, and it wasn't until recently that I realized that the resentments I cary, the self-doubt, and need to be something another person finds acceptable, have all contributed to the walls I have had to crumble to arrive where I am today.

 

When I first started this brand, I thought I needed a clever name that would catch peoples attention. But I had to ask myself the hardest question I have ever had to work out. "Why can't I accept Lisa as a name?" 

 

The answer showed me my resentment, and how I have not accepted myself as I am. It also showed me that just being my authentic self is enough. I can stop trying to fix myself so others will like me. That I have buried my authentic self so much that this line of work is just as much about my own self discovery and release of my own essence, as it is about connecting with those who resonate with the reflection of their soul they feel in my work. I believe that my journey, my ability to articulate, and express in image, is part of my purpose in helping others in their own acceptance, release or celebrating who they are. 

​

Despite all my hardships, abuses and upheavals I've experienced, the one part of me that has never left, could never be taken away, or destroyed was my ability to see the world the way I do and paint it.

 

I have always used painting as a way to process, not just emotion, but deep philosophical and theological concepts. But the raw emotional art and the logical art don't look good in a cohesive portfolio. L Aerin Collett will always be the philosophical, logical, deconstructor of metaphors of the esoteric parts of existentialism, but  Lisa Madsen just feels, reacts, and invents new ways to visually express what is abstract within us all.

​

To view my work as L Aerin Collett click 

​

My Philosophy

 

We all experience hardships and bad things. We all have resentments and parts of ourselves we don't want to accept either due to someones else's perception or our own. We all have insecurities and self doubt. We each have to find a way to work through them. I chose art, specifically painting and drawing, but I don't limit myself to those disciplines either. I believe that true explorations of the soul should carry no limitations, for how do we know what we will discover if we limit our ability to find it?

 

I have studied a plethora of religious texts, known and unknown along with ancient civilizations, philosophies, psychology, neurological elements, different nutritional and spiritual paths, along with behavior and emotional intelligence. My two biggest take aways are pretty cliche: "Know Thyself", and "The more I know, the more I don't know". But there is one spiritual truth that I have come to know as something tangible and intrinsic, I am an artist and a creator. There is nothing greater than the power of creation beyond just giving life. To sustain a life and overcome the difficulties that came with it, either through destruction or building, it is all part of the creation process. Your own life and what you choose to do with it is the most true thing we can experience on this earth. To discover the what, why and want of the soul and then live that truth, I believe is all God or the Universe or Source or whatever your reason lands on, has ever wanted from the human race. I paint simply to bring into existence a form that didn't exist before I created it.