Lisa Zimmer-Chu is a painter (BFA, Michigan State University) and Creative Arts Therapist (MPS, Pratt Institute). Formerly Artistic Director with VSA Arts of Loudoun, she is an artist resident for the El Cerrito Recycling Center for 2024/2025, and has volunteered in the studio at NIAD since fall of 2023.
Zimmer-Chu values process and is passionate about art that connects to the maker – their perspective, feelings, ideas, culture, experiences, and shared humanity. Also an activist and mother of two, she is committed to community and profoundly concerned about climate and social justice, right now and for future generations. She believes the arts are transformative for both the artist and those with whom their work is shared. Because the arts are part of culture, they can (and do) affect cultural change.
As an artist and curator, Zimmer-Chu is inspired by the relationship of the artist to materials. Considering resource use and the effects of consumption, she has long been personally committed to working with repurposed and found objects. Using things in unintended ways creates a juxtaposition and invites others to consider materiality (including labor, extraction, production, transportation, and disposal). While many items she uses in her work are manufactured, the assembly of them is clearly handmade, conveying the sense of making due with what is at hand and making the process visible. A conceptual artist, she enjoys metaphor and symbolism as she seeks purpose and strives to create relationships.
