Lisa Haque is an artist living and working in Miami, Florida. She has been making handmade paper and artist books for over 20 years. She is particularly passionate about papermaking and its wealth of possibilities as an artistic medium, reservoir of culture, and as a means of social connection. Paper, so ubiquitous in our culture, is often overlooked. But holding a piece of paper in your hands is holding a technology and knowledge dating back thousands of years. The process always begins with plants, and Lisa uses their materiality and forms as inspiration to create works reflecting on memory, growth, and decay. Fiber is gathered, soaked, processed into pulp, mixed with water and formed on screens. It is then pressed and dried through various methods, depending on the fiber and desired affect. Lisa embeds her work with content by altering or interrupting the process.
After earning an MFA in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts, Lisa spent 7 years as a professional papermaker. First, at The Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers University, where she collaborated with renowned artists including Kiki Smith and Richard Tuttle to produce editioned artist books and works in handmade paper, and then as a collaborator at Dieu Donné in Manhattan, where she worked with artists in residence to create new bodies of work in handmade paper and produced custom paper for artists.
She has taught papermaking, printing, and book arts for Rutgers University, the University of Georgia in Cortona, Italy, and institutions around the U.S. Her work has been shown at the Hudson Guild Gallery and the IPCNY in New York; Fabriano, Italy, and the Moriki Paper and Ozu Waski/Oji Paper Museum in Tokyo, Japan. Her artists books are housed at the University of Miami Special Collections and the Newark Public Library.
Read about Lisa’s background and process in this interview with VoyageMIA magazine. Click on image for link.
