Lisa Alonzo

Lisa Alonzo (b. 1984) was raised in Northern California and earned her BFA in painting from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Alonzo uses pastry tips and cake decorating tools to create her paintings, which examine themes of consumption and our illusory relationship with reality. Her work has been shown internationally and widely across the US, including exhibitions in New York, Miami, San Francisco, and Chicago. Her paintings are held in the public collections of the 21c Museum and The Federal Reserve.

Alonzo’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including Create Magazine, American Art Collector, I Like Your Work catalog, and New American Paintings.

Alonzo lives and works in Maine.

Artist Statement

As a child, I was enamored by frosting. On birthdays, I wanted that corner piece of cake and dreamed of becoming either a librarian or a cake decorator. My obsession with the sculptural nature of frosting continued in art school, where I adopted the use of pastry tips and cake decorating tools to create my paintings. I utilize these tools to address topics such as environmental toxins, the propaganda value of money, World War II, and whistleblowers.

I enjoy using my unique painting technique to create tension. My work explores a myriad of unsavory themes and makes them more palatable by rendering them as heavily frosted confections. I am currently working on a series of still-life paintings meant to be especially indulgent—rich in symbolism, texture, patterns, and saturated color.

The overarching theme connecting my body of work is an examination of consumption—of information, goods, and our historic inability to decipher truth from fiction. By piping acrylic gel medium onto the surface with pastry bags and tips, I create an enticing visual and tactile experience for the viewer. The end result is a painting that looks deceptively good enough to eat: an abundance of peaks, starbursts, flowers, pointillistic and rhythmic dots, and ribbons of graduated color draped over decadent mounds of paint masquerading as frosting.