Lisa Waup spent a month-long residency at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, March 8 – April 7, 2024. Waup delivered programs involving students, visiting curators and artists, and local residents.
Prior to taking up her residency, Waup spent several days in Washington D.C. visiting art museums and cultural sites with Darwin-based artist, Karen Mills (Balanggarra).
During the first week of the residency, Waup participated in the Curating Indigenous Printmaking workshop hosted by Kluge-Ruhe and UVA’s Department of Art and sponsored by the Getty Foundation through The Paper Project. The workshop introduced twelve First Nations curators working in the U.S. and Australia to a significant collection of prints by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists donated to Kluge-Ruhe by Australian master printer Basil Hall.
Waup spent time at the Virginia Center for the Book working with Basil Hall and fellow artist, Karen Mills, to produce a series of collagraph prints.
Lisa Waup is a mixed-cultural First Nations artist and curator who was born in Narrm (Melbourne). Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses a diverse range of media, including weaving, printmaking, photography, sculpture, fashion, and digital art. With a deep connection to the symbolic power of materials, her work reflects her personal experiences, family history, Country, and broader historical narratives. Through her practice, Waup weaves together threads of lost history, ancestral relationships, motherhood, and the passage of time that culminates in contemporary expressions that speak to her past, present, and future. In her words, “As a multidisciplinary artist, I’m guided to utilize so many different mediums—they really talk to me—and in turn they’re able to explain my story in different ways, they all connect with each other. Material diversity is a big part of what I do in my practice—I’m happy to move across various media and am always open to exploring new materials and approaches that connect to the work I am making at the time.”
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