Lisa Kokin lives and works in El Sobrante, California with her spouse, photographer Lia Roozendaal; Austin and Ollie, her canine studio assistants; and Bindi the cat. The daughter of upholsterers, Kokin stitches everything she can get her hands on, including discarded books which she rescues from the local recycling center. Kokin brings a fiber sensibility and a conceptual approach to a diverse array of materials. Her work is often a commentary on the world around her, often incorporating the age-old Jewish response to adversity: humor.
Kokin has been the recipient of multiple awards and commissions, including a Eureka Fellowship, a WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship, The Dorothy Saxe Invitational Award for Creativity in Contemporary Arts, the Alameda County Arts Commission (multiple venues), and the Richmond Civic Center Public Art Interior Acquisitions Project. Her work is in numerous private collections. Public and corporate collections include the Boise Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California, the Buchenwald Memorial, the di Rosa Preserve, Mills College, Yale University Art Museum, University of Washington Special Collections, Rutgers University, Kaiser Permanente, and Tiffany & Co.
