Sept. 26, 2006 -- Artist Elena Sisto will give a public lecture in conjunction with the University of Virginia Art Museum exhibit “Complicit! Contemporary American Art and Mass Culture.” The Oct. 5 talk, at 6 p.m. in Campbell Hall, Room 160, is sponsored by the McIntire Department of Art’s studio art division and is free and open to the public.

Sisto, who is one of the exhibitors in the museum show, will also critique student work during her U.Va. visit.

During the past 10 years Sisto’s work has focused on what she refers to as “imaginary portraits.” The paintings are inspired by her life, but take on fictional and sometimes cartoon-like characteristics. In her most recent works she has been on a quest for her ancestors.

“My focus is on keeping an even balance between the emotional and formal realities of the process. That is how the paintings become fiction,” Sisto said in an artist statement.

Sisto attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City; Brown University; the Rhode Island School of Design; and the New York Studio of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. She has taught at the Columbia School of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design and the Chautauqua Institution. She has exhibited in numerous one-person shows and group shows across the country in her more than 20 years as an artist. She is the recipient of two National Endowment of the Arts fellowships.

For more information contact the McIntire Department of Art at (434) 924-6123.