Lisa Alonzo (b.1984,California) grew up working on her family’s Christmas tree farm, dreaming one day of becoming either a Veterinarian or a cake decorator. She earned her BFA in Painting at the Academy of Art in San Francisco in 2008.  After a decade in SF, she moved to Maine where she maintains a studio practice exploring themes of illusion and consumption. She has exhibited her work in the United States and Europe and is included in many collections including the 21c Museum and the Federal Reserve.

For the last 10 years Alonzo has been using her unique painting technique to explore uncomfortable themes and make them more palatable by rendering them as bright, colorful and intricate cakes. Specifically drawn to our cultures consumption of information, media or other imagery in pop culture, Alonzo questions our ability to decipher between what is real and what is an illusion. Utilizing her material to create a visual and tactile experience for the viewer, Alonzo paints using acrylic gel medium, piped onto the surface using pastry bags and tips- the paint looks like frosting. The end result is intricate and sculptural. The application is pointillistic, often rendering the finished image photorealistic, mimicking pixels on a screen.  Her first series using this method examined our relationship with selfies and social media.  Alonzo has since explored many other facets within the same concept, including the propaganda value of money, weapons, and whistleblowers.