Lisa Learner-Wagner and her painting.

(Delaware and Chester Counties, PA)—“I paint the light and shadows that I see around me—usually on individual figures waiting in suburban or urban landscapes, often at train stations,” says Lisa Learner-Wagner, adjunct professor of Studio Art at Delaware County Community College (DCCC) who paints under the name “Lisa Learner.” 

On April 10, her painting, “The Letter” — depicting a woman standing at the old Ardmore Station reading a letter — was copied, enlarged and installed in the waiting room of the newly built, ADA-accessible, open to the public SEPTA/Amtrak Ardmore Station. The original painting is still among the permanent collections of artwork at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill.

Learner-Wagner’s artwork is owned by local hospitals, universities, and educational institutions, the American Council on Education in Washington D.C., and is in many other private, corporate, and government collections in this country. Her paintings are also in collections in Canada and Japan.

“I explore the contrast between the human form and the architecture of the stations: patient people waiting with the strong light on the hard angles and the precise perspectives of the rails. I explore how figures fit into their environments, and how the lights and darks unite them with their surroundings.”

She has been teaching drawing and painting classes at DCCC since 1991. “I love turning undecided students into Studio Art majors and watching tentative sketchers at the beginning of the semester become confident in their abilities as the class progresses.” She holds a B.F.A. from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her website is lisalearner.com.