Lisa Parkyn is a Devon-based painter known for her vibrant use of colour, expressive mark-making and layered mixed media. Her work draws from the sensory experience and raw drama of landscape, wild seascapes and untamed florals. Her process is grounded in nature and informed by backgrounds in graphic design, life drawing and psychotherapy.
She primarily works in water-based media, building up layers of acrylic, ink, collage, pastels and charcoal on canvas, paper or wood. Through drawing, scraping, washing and sanding, she create rich surface texture and history. Her approach balances intuition with analysis, allowing compositions to emerge organically through a dynamic process of addition and subtraction.
A commitment to experimentation and play sustains her artistic voice, ensuring her work remains fluid and evolving.
Lisa Parkyn (b. 1975, South West Africa) is a painter who spent her early life on a remote farm in the Kalahari semi-desert, Botswana. Growing up in a family of painters, she developed an early affinity for art before pursuing studies and a career in graphic design in South Africa and London. While working in London, she completed a degree in movement psychotherapy, further enriching her understanding of expression and human form. After traveling internationally, she settled in Devon in 2008, where she gradually returned to painting – first through portraiture and landscapes, before evolving toward a more abstract and process-driven approach.
Winner of the Society of Women Artists 2025 President and Vice Presidents’ Award; Parkyn has exhibited widely in national and regional open exhibitions, including the Society of Women Artists (2025, 2024, 2023, 2022), South West Academy Open (2024, 2023, 2022), and Figurative Art Now (2021). Her solo exhibitions include Evoke (Malthouse Gallery, Lyme Regis, 2025), Resonance (Sou’ Sou’ West Contemporary Gallery, 2024), Layers & Light (Malthouse Gallery, Lyme Regis, 2021), and Delving Beneath (Kennaway House, Sidmouth, 2021).
Recent group exhibitions include the Chelsea Art Society 75th Annual Exhibition (2024), Artizan Women’s Open (2024), Esprit (Malthouse Gallery, 2024), Responses (Malthouse Gallery, 2023), Replenish (Malthouse Gallery, 2023), Pop Up 22 (Sou’ Sou’ West Contemporary Gallery, Bridport, 2022), Memory & Emotion (Artizan Gallery, 2022), Echoes (Lyme Regis, 2022), and Spring Selected Artists (Artizan South West Contemporary, Torquay, 2022).
Her work is held in private collections across the UK, as well as in Africa, Japan, and Mauritius. In addition to her painting practice, she has led numerous art workshops since 2020.
