Contemporary
Modern interpretations of familiar subjects through color, light, and form.
The contemporary work explores everyday subjects through a modern, expressive lens. Using acrylics, oils, mixed media, and pastels, I simplify shapes and emphasize light and color to create pieces that feel familiar yet quietly transformed. I’m less interested in exact representation and more drawn to mood — the sense of a place, a moment, or a fleeting atmosphere. These works are meant to feel approachable and lived-in, offering a gentle narrative the viewer can step into and make their own.
Where the Desert Meets the Sea
Oils & Cold Wax
This contemporary landscape is inspired by the Baja coastline, where desert and ocean exist side by side in quiet balance. Layers of oil paint and cold wax create a softly weathered surface, suggesting sun-bleached sand, distant water, and agave forms beneath an expansive sky. Rather than a literal place, the painting captures the memory and atmosphere of being there.
Medium: Oil and cold wax, paper mounted on wood panel
Size: 11 x 14 inches
Style: Contemporary landscape abstraction
Finish: Satin/matte natural wax surface (non-gloss)
Framing: Ready to frame
Signed: Yes, by Lisa Tollner
Original Artwork: One of a kind
Artist Note
This piece comes from time spent traveling through Baja, where the landscape feels vast but intimate at the same time. I’m drawn to places where elements overlap — desert beside ocean, dryness beside moisture, stillness beside movement. I wasn’t interested in painting the exact location, only the feeling of standing there and noticing how quiet everything became.
Bohemian Bouquet
Acrylic Mixed Media
Floral still-life created with hand-made papers and layered with acrylics.
Size: 8 x 11
Status: Available
The Long Game
Mixed Media + Acrylic, mounted on wood panel
A young athlete rises into the air mid-kick, formed from dozens of hand-placed paper fragments. Around her, women from earlier eras observe — figures whose clothing and roles would never have allowed such freedom of movement. Butterflies surround the player, suggesting both support and transformation. The work reflects the generational journey of women in sport and the unseen presence of those who came before.
Medium: Mixed media collage, paper assemblage, drawing and paint on panel
Size: 14x11
Style: Figurative contemporary
Surface: Layered textured paper and painted background
Framing: unframed
Signed: Yes, by Lisa Tollner
Original Artwork: One of a kind
Artist Note
I was thinking about how recent women’s athletics actually are in human history. Not long ago, social rules and even clothing physically prevented women from running, jumping, or competing. The player in the painting is airborne — a movement that feels ordinary today but would have once been impossible.
I wanted the figures behind her to feel present without interrupting her moment. They are not obstacles. They are witnesses. The butterflies became a natural element representing encouragement, resilience, and the quiet lifting that happens across generations.
The athlete appears strong, but she is literally made of fragments — many pieces forming one body. To me, that reflects how progress works. No single person changes everything alone.
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More Art Coming Soon!
