Lisa Edelstein: Family

About

Opening on December 7 at SFA Advisory, celebrated art advisor Lisa Schiff’s Tribeca outpost, 'Family' is the first solo exhibition by Lisa Edelstein. Perhaps best known as her role as Dr. Cuddy on the hit medical drama 'House', Edelstein started drawing during the midst of the pandemic. What initiated as a desire to create her own coloring book resulted in a series of works of on paper. Turning to old family portraits as a source of inspiration, Edelstein began with magic markers before swiftly shifting to watercolors. Her family photos are reminiscent of a time when pictures were spontaneous, capturing something honest and authentic, rather than composed and conscientious. The artist reveals: “Today these are the pictures that we delete… So, it’s a relief to look at images that capture the unedited, the uncomfortable and the unintended.”

Lisa started her career by writing, composing, and performing her AIDS awareness musical “Positive Me” at the renowned La Mama theater in New York City. She then pursued an acting career in television and film, volleying between comedy and drama. She played a variety of culturally ground-breaking roles such as Rhonda Roth in ABCs Relativity, which featured Lisa in the first lesbian make-out scene on network TV, and law student Laurie on The West Wing, who smoked pot and unashamedly chose prostitution to pay for her degree. Lisa then spent seven seasons as Cuddy on the worldwide hit Fox medical drama “House,” followed by five seasons as Abby, the star of “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce,” and three seasons as Phoebe, Alan Arkin’s drug addict daughter on “The Kominsky Method.” During this time, she started directing - both on TV and her own projects (short films Unzipping, Lulu) as well as writing, selling both a pilot and a feature she is attached to direct. Next on the acting horizon is Fremantle’s limited series “Little Bird” as well as the short film projects “Swipe NYC” and “Shadow Brother” with Alden Ehrenreich. Entirely self-taught, Lisa developed an art practice during the pandemic. Her exhibition at SFA Advisory in New York marks her first-ever solo presentation.