Portals with Ken Tisa: Organized by Mindy Shapero

Ken Tisa began many of his lessons with an unusual prompt: "What did you dream?" His students recall the ritual of waking up, dream journals in hand, tasked with translating the ephemeral imagery of their subconscious into something tangible. It wasn’t about precision or clarity—a perfect recounting of the dream—but about honoring that transitional state of consciousness where intuition takes precedence over logic. Through this act, Tisa taught his students a crucial lesson: art is not just about the finished work; it’s about embracing the act of creation as a way to reach for something intangible, something just beyond the grasp of waking rationality.

Portals with Ken Tisa, curated by Mindy Shapero—a former student of Tisa’s and herself a sculptor and painter—is a celebration of this ethos and the remarkable legacy Tisa has built as both an artist and an educator. Born in 1945 in Philadelphia, Tisa emerged from New York City’s vibrant downtown art scene in the 1970s, earning acclaim for his intricate paintings and beaded textile wall works. His works bridge the ancient and the contemporary, drawing on art history and technical mastery while embracing experimentation. For six decades, he has not only created a body of work that invites viewers into otherworldly realms but has also shaped a generation of artists and writers who have passed through his classrooms.

Tisa’s shift toward works that evoke portals as gateways to other worlds or altered states appears, too, in the art of his former students. Their work ranges from shimmering paintings inviting viewers into dreamlike dimensions, to sculptural explorations of biomorphic forms, glittering surfaces, and glowing circles that pulse with a meditative rhythm. Across mediums—from painting to sculpture, textiles to video—the works in this exhibition are united by a shared pursuit: to reach that liminal space where making becomes a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious.

At the heart of Tisa’s teaching is a deep respect for materiality and individuality. Each contributing artist’s work reflects a unique practice, yet they are all connected by a joy in creation that Tisa instilled in them. He teaches that the studio as a place of self-discovery, of meditation.

Portals with Ken Tisa invites us to see the work of these artists not just as objects, but as thresholds—gateways into a legacy defined by imagination, community, and the profound pleasure of creating.