artist
Currently (since 2015) I am working in acrylic/mixed media painting, having worked exclusively on paper for twenty years. A combination of abstraction and figuration unites my work on paper and canvas.
I love the element of pure chance that frequently shapes the beginning of a painting and my approach is often to begin with a negative conception—the absence of subject matter—figurative or abstract—to direct my painting. From this initial starting point, something begins to emerge from the canvas and makes a claim of its own. The challenge is to follow this push-and-pull tension—the combination of chance and claim. Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's concept of "play" is an apt description of my process--a process where both artist and canvas are a "player being played" by and through the process of painting. The completed painting is a mirror of this process.
As a former philosophy professor and writer of intensely linguistic and conceptual monographs, I am mesmerized by the process of painting. It occurs without explicit recourse to language or concept, yet requires discernment and articulation that is just as demanding as any academic task. In an increasingly specialized and calculated world, the serious mystery of this process is a wonder.
I love the element of pure chance that frequently shapes the beginning of a painting and my approach is often to begin with a negative conception—the absence of subject matter—figurative or abstract—to direct my painting. From this initial starting point, something begins to emerge from the canvas and makes a claim of its own. The challenge is to follow this push-and-pull tension—the combination of chance and claim. Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's concept of "play" is an apt description of my process--a process where both artist and canvas are a "player being played" by and through the process of painting. The completed painting is a mirror of this process.
As a former philosophy professor and writer of intensely linguistic and conceptual monographs, I am mesmerized by the process of painting. It occurs without explicit recourse to language or concept, yet requires discernment and articulation that is just as demanding as any academic task. In an increasingly specialized and calculated world, the serious mystery of this process is a wonder.
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Liz Caan
Interior Design |
RECENT EXHIBITS
2019 Emerging Artist Exhibition, July 9-26 (Juror: Chanel Thervil), Kathryn Schulz Gallery, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, Ma New Member Exhibit, Jan. 9-Feb.6, Silvermine Art Center, New Canaan, CT (Artist Member) |
PRESS
Artscope Magazine, September/October 2016, “Building on Life Lessons: Scheibler and Thompson in Newton” Boston Globe, Sunday Magazine My pictures appeared in a feature on baseball player Manny Ramirez’s Ritz-Carlton penthouse, designed by Dennis Duffy. |
author
My book, Gadamer: Between Heidegger and Habermas (2000) examines the work of German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) and his relation to his mentor, philosopher Martin Heidegger and to Jurgen Habermas, a social and political theorist. Gadamer’s work is often characterized as a ‘philosophical hermeneutics’—a philosophical examination of interpretation. My book looks at how all three of these thinkers are seeking to analyze, and find alternatives to, the increasingly mechanistic and instrumental way—inherited from the modern, Enlightenment project—that we view the natural and social worlds. So, there is a strong ethical dimension to the work that resonates.
Fostering a relational, rather than objectifying, mode of thinking of our relation to others and the natural environment is a large underpinning of the book. Those are the more practical, and ethical, dimensions. The philosopher in me was/is also deeply attracted to Gadamer and Heidegger’s study of the nature of language. A study of their views of the mode of being of language, and our relation to it, forms a big chunk of the book.
When I had finished the proofs of the book, I realized that one of my drawings, ‘the Conversation’, might make a good cover. I sent it to the publisher, and they were very pleased with the image which shows two figures standing inscribed in a fluid circle. Gadamer developed a concept of dialogue based on Martin Buber’s notion of an ‘I-Thou’ (rather than ‘I-It”) relationship. This special sense of conversation aims to avoid objectifying, or knowing in advance, the position, or ‘claim’, of the Other. Too often personal or political dialogue is not truly open. Gadamer’s view asks that each participant in a dialogue is open to the seriousness of what the other is saying, to the point where they will allow that “the other might be right”. This creates a moral bond, and we can have this, highest form, of dialogue with another person, something from history or tradition, or a work of art.
Fostering a relational, rather than objectifying, mode of thinking of our relation to others and the natural environment is a large underpinning of the book. Those are the more practical, and ethical, dimensions. The philosopher in me was/is also deeply attracted to Gadamer and Heidegger’s study of the nature of language. A study of their views of the mode of being of language, and our relation to it, forms a big chunk of the book.
When I had finished the proofs of the book, I realized that one of my drawings, ‘the Conversation’, might make a good cover. I sent it to the publisher, and they were very pleased with the image which shows two figures standing inscribed in a fluid circle. Gadamer developed a concept of dialogue based on Martin Buber’s notion of an ‘I-Thou’ (rather than ‘I-It”) relationship. This special sense of conversation aims to avoid objectifying, or knowing in advance, the position, or ‘claim’, of the Other. Too often personal or political dialogue is not truly open. Gadamer’s view asks that each participant in a dialogue is open to the seriousness of what the other is saying, to the point where they will allow that “the other might be right”. This creates a moral bond, and we can have this, highest form, of dialogue with another person, something from history or tradition, or a work of art.
academic
I received my Ph.D. from Cambridge University in Social and Political Sciences (1991). I was then a Junior Research Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge (1991-1994). My background is in 19th and 20th century European philosophy. I was an Assistant Professor at Boston College from 1994-2001 and taught a variety of courses, from introduction to philosophy to more specialized graduate courses in aesthetics, critical theory and feminist philosophy. I have published numerous articles on hermeneutics and aesthetics and art-culture.
I left the academic world in 2002 and pursued my interest in art and museum culture. In 2003, I was a consultant for the LEF Foundation, a family-run arts foundation, where I helped to allocate their annual fund. That year, I also interned at the LIST Visual Art Center at MIT, where I did research and fundraising associated with the American entry at the Venice Biennale, Fred Wilson.
I left the academic world in 2002 and pursued my interest in art and museum culture. In 2003, I was a consultant for the LEF Foundation, a family-run arts foundation, where I helped to allocate their annual fund. That year, I also interned at the LIST Visual Art Center at MIT, where I did research and fundraising associated with the American entry at the Venice Biennale, Fred Wilson.
