About Lindsey Kiser
Having worked in scratchboard for 35 years, Lindsey Kiser uses the labor of looking and the labor of making slow, deliberate engraved marks to ask how intimate attention might alter our relationship with the living world.
Kiser studied art, biology and chemistry at Georgetown College and drawing and art history at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University, England. She received her juris doctor with honors from NKU Chase College of Law and practiced patent law for fifteen years.
In recognition of her artistic excellence, Lindsey Kiser has been selected for membership in the International Society of Scratchboard Artists and Kentucky Crafted, a program of the Kentucky Arts Council.
In August 2026, Lextran selected work from Kiser’s Wondrous Pollinators series for public art in Lexington, Kentucky. In 2025, sixteen works from the series were exhibited alongside Charley Harper: Birds & Beasts at the Headley-Whitney Museum of Art. She received a 2024 grant from Summerfair Cincinnati and is currently artist-in-residence for the Friends of the Boone County Arboretum. In 2020, she was commissioned to illustrate two children’s books.
Her solo exhibitions include the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, Janice Mason Art Museum, and Thomas More University. Her work has been exhibited nationally, from California to New York and Rhode Island.
To experience her work in person, please visit Kentucky Crafted at The Kentucky Horse Park in March; the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair—The Original in Ann Arbor, Michigan in July; the permanent collections of University of Kentucky, U.S. Bank in Bowling Green, Kentucky, The Sporting Gent in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Boone County Arboretum; or book a private studio tour directly with Lindsey.
Kiser lives with her husband, daughters, and two Brittanys on three acres and two ponds in Union, Kentucky, where the rhythms of wildlife, water, and cultivated and wild landscapes continue to inform her work.
Artist’s Statement
A creeping epidemic, framed as a widespread “hollow” emptiness, reflects societal disengagement from civil conversation on meaningful topics. Yet, we are in the same position as the sailors in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink”.
We thirst for beauty, meaning, and joy, which are abundantly available all around us, but remain unseen. Familiarity blinds our eyes. Rather than focusing on subjects from urban culture or an increasingly inaccessible wilderness, I select nature motifs from the southern American backyard as my subject. I place my highly detailed subjects within a simple, solid black background to create tension and provide visual relief. Common pollinators are selected to rebrand the familiar as fascinating. Each pollinator is presented as a metaphor to evoke wonder and contemplation of long-held beliefs from new perspectives. For instance, each caterpillar leaves just enough room around her head inside the chrysalis for her future antennae to grow. Thus, imagination goes ahead before reason.
My artistic process requires intense spotlight-like observation to see and understand how light hits every fold and crease of petals and leaves, and the shape, line, and texture of feathers and scales. Meanwhile, lantern light-like consciousness is required to capture accurately the whole of my subject within the greater context of its environment and to understand how the individual piece fits not only within a series, but also within the larger context of contemporary art.
Unlike traditional drawing, my marks are white, as the needle scratches off the black india ink of the scratchboard panels to expose the white clay underneath. Thus, I concentrate on where light highlights form. I leave shadowy areas black or with less marks.
If I am adding color to a piece, I will plan ahead and over-scratch an area to add in colorful inks and/or iridescent watercolors. The shimmering colors next to the matte black ink are reminiscent of traditional Japanese embroidery on black silk kimonos. The cycle of scratching and painting is repeated until each work is complete.