In the Studio with Liz Dexheimer
June 4, 2025
Painter and printmaker Liz Dexheimer virtually sat down with us to discuss her background as an artist, what excites her create her work, and much more! Dexheimer layers vivid colors, bold patterns and expressive line to create elegant, ornamental panels and works on paper. Her dense, playful compositions are tightly structured with free-flowing, gestural marks. Her imagery, informed by both the linear and fluid elements of wetland environments and the dynamic energy of the human form, conveys both a sense of play and serenity. The push-pull between the ephemeral and the enduring, between motion and stillness, plays a central role in Dexheimer’s work.
CBCA: What’s your background? Did you always want to be an artist?
LD: I’m not sure if there was a specific moment that I started becoming an artist. I just always accepted that I was an artist; it has always been in me and always been how I’ve thought about things, expressed myself and defined myself.
My first structured experience was a finger-painting class at the Metropolitan Museum in New York when I was almost 3 years old. I don’t remember a thing about it but I do have a couple of the pieces that my mother saved. I like looking at them occasionally. They remind me that, knowingly or not, I’ve always been exploring the ideas of gesture, space and color.
I have been making art, thinking about art, studying art by other artists ever since. My formal education includes painting, drawing, printmaking, a lot of art history which I feel is critical for learning how to see, and a concentration in East Asian studies – art, history, literature, all of which have greatly informed my work over the years. I have a BA from Oberlin College and continued my studio practice once back in NYC with coursework at Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts in NYC.
CBCA: What excites you to make your work? Why do you make art?
LD: I make art because that’s who I am and what I do. I am a visual learner and thinker and have always translated concepts into a visual narrative of some sort. I also love the process of making art, the materiality. If I was to specify a desired outcome of why I make art, it’s to create beauty and give joy while simultaneously evoking a sense of mystery, presence and timelessness. I think perhaps part of the reason that I am drawn to elements of the natural world is due to the sense of timelessness and universality that they impart. Always, I invite the viewer to look, and relook, at something in a new way, to go deeper. // I’m inspired to make art by what I see that I find compelling, using specific elements or locations as a point of departure to convey something more abstract. I get excited about pushing things further. Aside from that, one thing that excites and energizes me even more to make work is looking at work by others that speaks to me.
CBCA: What kind of creative patterns, routines or rituals do you have? What time of day do you prefer to work?
LD: I don’t have any rituals but I do love the feeling of walking into the studio for the first time on any given day – I love the physical space and the feeling of endless possibility every time I step into it to begin a new work day. It’s a sanctuary. // Ideally I get into the studio mid-late morning and spend an hour or two there before lunch. And then I spend the entire afternoon there, because that’s the time available. // Procrastination: My studio is on our property which leads to all sorts of opportunities for procrastination. Doing non-art related emails/household tasks, just about anything that suddenly seems important, all while being very aware that studio time is being frittered away and being annoyed with myself about it. After lunch especially. But once I’m in the studio I’m annoyed with myself for not getting out there sooner and will stay for hours.
CBCA: How do you begin a work? Do you research? If so, how?
My work is generally informed by what I see around me in the natural world. So there isn’t really much call for research. A few times a year I seek out (or happen upon) an area that I find compelling for some reason – land/rock/water formations, vegetation/light patterns, really anything that strikes me for one reason or another – the patterns the light makes, the color flows of a garden, the compositions found in rocks, anything. I’ll take a small sketchbook and sharpie (because it flows along the paper) and spend hours doing quick flowing linear sketches focusing on whatever it is that I find interesting about a particular spot. Once back in the studio, I review the drawings, looking for a few that in that moment I think would translate well into paintings, then make larger drawings, then mock-ups with color ideas…colors that are appealing to me at the moment or I think create an interesting tension, not necessarily ones from whatever I was looking at. I have piles of these drawings in the studio, I reach for them when I’m looking for a fresh start or just to say hello to that part of my process, they never lose their relevance. I combine these with whatever else I’m thinking about, they provide a sort of structure, either subtly or overtly.
CBCA: What thoughts go through your mind when you create?
When I’m in the flow, I’m not really aware of any specific thoughts, I’m just enjoying the state of grace that occurs. When I’m not in the flow or just need to step back to observe, what goes through my mind tends to be about formal issues – what is needed to make a piece sing?
CBCA: What artist(s) or movement(s) have influenced your work?
So many. But mostly movements/artists that explore natural imagery in some form and who emphasize color/gesture/formal patterns over representation. Nature is pretty perfect on its own, I’m not interested in replicating it. My work is a reaction rather than a depiction.
CBCA: What informs your work? What themes do you pursue?
My visual cues come primarily from my constant and continued observation of the natural environment, it’s almost an osmosis. I use what I find compelling about specific elements or locations as a point of departure to convey something more abstract. Again, a reaction, not a depiction.
My recurring narrative is about suggested form and motion and how color, pattern, and gesture work together, playing with the picture plane, guiding the viewer along a journey.
CBCA: Why/How have you chosen your medium? Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?
LD: I work primarily with two processes– painting and printmaking. I love them both. There isn’t really a specific reason that I chose painting to begin with, it feels like the default medium (along with drawing) when one first starts making art and I’ve just stuck with it, I like it. The feeling of a brush again canvas or paper, what paint can do to give dimensionality to a 2-D surface, the malleability of the medium. The materiality of the paint itself also informs my work, what I know I can do with oil, with acrylic, with ink, how each can be manipulated to achieve results unique to each medium.
I have an extensive background in all types of printmaking. I was drawn to the various processes and the different ways of treating the surface. I realized a long time ago that I wasn’t that interested in editioning work and began working with viscosity monotypes exclusively. Again, I just like the process and also how its inherent fluidity is in synergy with the fluidity of the images I am creating. The results really can’t be achieved in any other way.
CBCA: What are you trying to communicate with your art?
LD: Timelessness. A sense of immersion. The beginning of a conversation with the viewer.
DL: How has your work progressed? How has your practice changed over time?
LD: Everything is always a progression and everything builds on what’s been done before. That aside, it feels like the underlying themes of my work, what I’m always thinking about, are not that changed. It’s how I choose to express them that changes. Sometimes more abstracted, sometimes not.
CBCA: As an artist, how do you define success?
LD: Creating something that someone wants to take home to live with and look at forever. Or, in a public space, something that causes a brief pause, a moment of joy.
Liz Dexheimer
Liz Dexheimer
Liz Dexheimer
Liz Dexheimer
Liz Dexheimer
Liz Dexheimer
