Francie Lyshak

My practice is rooted in painting as a means of navigating inner life. I began my career immersed in New York’s East Village during the 1970s and ’80s, where I painted symbolic, figurative works charged with psychological intensity and feminist sensibility. These paintings—featuring dolls, toys, animals, and human figures—emerged from a desire to give form to the hidden narratives of vulnerability, survival, and resilience.

A pivotal project, *The Secret: Art and Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse*, marked a turning point in both my life and work. Confronting trauma directly through paint and story, I witnessed the transformative power of art as a vehicle for healing. This experience reshaped my path and informed both my studio practice and my parallel work in art therapy, where I developed programs in psychiatric and community settings.

In time, my painting evolved away from figuration toward abstraction. I became drawn to surfaces, textures, and color fields that operate in a pre-verbal register—spaces where language falls away, and mood, memory, and presence take precedence. My current monochromatic reliefs invite viewers into a contemplative exchange with shifting light and surface, echoing inner states of solitude, intimacy...

Education:
Pratt Institute, Art Therapy and Creativity Development, MPS, NYC, 1976-78
Wayne State University, Painting and Drawing, BFA, Detroit, Michigan, 1-69 to 5-70

Collections:
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
Phillips Museum at Franklin and Marshall, PA
Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Center, Bronx, New York
Private collections in US and Great Britain

Selected One and Two-Person Exhibitions:

Precarious Visions, Thom Adams Gallery, Manchester, NH, 2024
Mad Rose Gallery, Millerton, NY, 2024
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH, 2021
Precarious Visions, Phillips Museum, Franklin & Marshall, PA, 2021
Inside/Outside, Carter Burden Gallery, NYC, 2021; Atmospheres, 2015; Gestures, 2017
La MaMa La Galleria, NYC–Place Imagined, 2004; The Spirit of Water, 1998; Dollhouse Theatre, 1996; The Secret, 1993
Bill Rice Studio Solo Exhibitions, 1988, 1984


Selected Group Exhibitions:

The Shape of Color: 5 Abstract Artists, Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA, 2024
Lichtundfire Gallery, NYC–Wings of Desire, 2023; A Touch of Grey 2023; A Lighter Shade of Pale, 2023 Lichtundfire–High Frequency, 2022; Speed of Light, 2022; Minimal Force, 2022; Stratosphere, 2022
Real Abstraction: Five Painters (curated by Peter Frank), 2021
Yard, Steven Harvey Fine Arts, NYC, 2019; Paradise, 2016
Visual Aids, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., NYC, 2013
DNA: East Side (with Wojnarowicz, Rice, Ess, Morrison, Lyshak), Provincetown, MA, 2011
Invitational Exhibition, A.I.R. Gallery, NYC, 1997
Walls, Denise Bibro Gallery, NYC, 1996
The First Decade, La MaMa La Galleria, NYC, 1992
Just Another Asshole #7, curate...