"Avant Gardener"

Lisa d. Watson Gallery Exhibition

"AVANT GARDENER"- A Creative Exploration of Imperiled Species

Lisa D. Watson is an artist and a gardener.
Lisa's concern with human sprawl fuses with her love for plants and animals, pushing her to create multilayered artwork that sparks a deeper awareness of the human impact on nature. Since 2019, with the help of biologists, rangers, and regional naturalists, she has ventured into the surrounding landscapes of the Southeast to study endangered, threatened, and rare plants.

In "Avant Gardener: A Creative Exploration of Imperiled Species", she probes how the loss of habitat, sprawl, chemical spraying, invasive exotic species, and poachers are changing native habitats into unhealthy and unsustainable lands. In the past, botanical illustrations were used by scientists and physicians for classification. What once was documented as discoveries, Watson feels an urgency to pay homage to before they disappear. Watson’s materials are also essential to her process. She notes, “I cannot fully express the story of our remaining fragile environments without incorporating an art practice of reusing materials to prevent waste and unnecessary consumption. Industrial wood scrap becomes my canvas. Shredded documents and security envelopes transform into lush foliage and textured landscapes.” The exhibition is accompanied by composer Eric Chasalow’s What Shade of Green is Our Horizon? The 42-minute aural land and seascape were composed for Avant Gardener after Lisa and Eric met at an artist’s residency at The Studios of Key West in 2022.

March 9 - May 5

Gallery Opens: 5:30 pm
Artist Talk at 6:00 pm

About the Artist

Lisa D. Watson (LDW) is a Georgia-based artist and gardener whose environmental concerns are expressed in each project. Her assemblage pieces contain 90% reclaimed material such as paper products, metal, industrial wood, produce netting and more. She has used recycled objects as her medium for over 25 years and continually works towards a fully sustainable practice. LDW seeks balance between urbanization and conservation in her artwork and landscape design. Her company, Plan It Green Design, LLC consults homeowners with native, drought tolerant, and pollinator friendly landscapes. Her work has been exhibited nationally in solo exhibitions: Avant Gardener,
Sulfur Studios, Savannah, GA & The Coastal Discovery Museum, Hilton Head Island, SC; Interurban, Brassworks, Montclair, NJ; Right to Vote, Pop-Up, Los Angeles, CA; Deer Humans, The Studios of Key West, FL; Cemento Armato, Florence County Museum, SC; and Avanguardia, Telfair Museum's Jepson Center, Savannah, GA. Subsequently, the Jepson Center purchased one of the artworks, Convergence, for their permanent collection. Articles about LDW have been published in The Savannah Morning News, Wall Street International Magazine, Paprika Southern Magazine, The Longleaf Leader Magazine, Voices of Nature, Voyage ATL, Connect Savannah and Forbes.com. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Columbus College of Art & Design in Ohio and a Certificate of Interior Design from LTU in Chatsworth, California. LDW works out of her Savannah studio and lives with her husband, Don along with three rescued cats and a Shih Tzu.