Little Rock native Lisa Krannichfeld took her first art classes at Parkview Arts Science Magnet. It was this experience that unlocked a passion that has had a hold on her throughout college and her career. With an affinity for watercolor, the artist’s move from indoor studios to streets and brick canvases may seem novel, but it’s more a matter of public service.
“This is our art,” Krannichfeld says, detailing why she chooses to paint on buildings in the metro area, a feat she also says is exhilarating due to its provocative undertone. Her first mural project in North Little Rock is similar to her new work on Chester Street, both centering women wearing colorful patterned suits. She believes this urban position grants exposure to her mission of depicting women as powerful.
“Women and girls will drive past and see this mural and see themselves in it,” Krannichfeld says, who not only portrays strength by depicting women in suits and dominant poses, but also by giving them ambiguity in only painting the lower half of their faces.
The subjects are familiar to Krannichfeld, who has illustrated them before in her signature techniques of mixed media, ink and watercolor, which is still her primary format. Here, she employs the “more difficult” process of painting all three women at once, rather than one at a time, in effort to make the colors “speak to each other, but contrast at the same time.”
Even on this surface, the artist displays impressive attention to detail to suscitate the wall and her mission. The texture of the brick makes the skin look lifelike, the dynamic patterns and color assigning power to femininity.
She asserts that her work will never depict women as docile, and there is no denying the fierce women in Krannichfeld’s murals will speak to passersby the way they speak to each other.
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