Francie Lyshak: Precarious Visions

Throughout the history of art, but especially in the last 150 years or so, there have been numerous painters whose works have been either inspired by dreams or carry a dreamlike resonance. One thinks of French Symbolists like Gustave Moreau or the fiercely original Henri Rousseau or any number of Surrealists who claimed to be guided by the promptings of the unconscious. Improbable events take place in unusual settings. A fiddler plays by firelight at the edge of gently roaring surf. A newly wedded couple floats in a small boat, navigating choppy waters filled with seals, dolphins, and what look to be aquatic dinosaurs. Francie Lyshak’s paintings from this show, most from a roughly ten-year period in the late 1980s and mid-90s, share the same qualities of enchantment and surprise—a certain dreaminess, if you will—that animates works by Rousseau or even Marc Chagall.