Painting
Alison's Studio
I paint and show my acrylic and watercolour paintings in my garden studio on Protection Island, near Nanaimo, B.C. I have shown my paintings with the Cedar Coast Group of west coast artists, and was featured in the award-winning book, Carmanah – Artistic Visions of an Ancient Rainforest.
I am an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and have participated in many invitational shows as a botanical artist, including at the University of British Columbia, Hycroft Manor, and the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboretae.
My paintings have received awards at the Sidney Fine Art Show, and more recently at the Federation of Canadian Artists Juried shows in Nanaimo (fall 2009, summer 2010, and summer 2011).
My work, including still lives, landscapes, portraits and abstracts in watercolour and acrylic, is featured throughout this website.
Here is how a colleague (Darcy Johnson) describes my work:
Alison's art is informed by her extensive knowledge of the natural world and the processes that shape it. From small watercolour landscapes to large acrylic abstracts her paintings are crafted with a sophisticated palette and delicately structured imagery.
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Botanicals
I began painting plants in my twenties, working in parks, inspired by the long tradition of the naturalist field sketch. Later when I worked in a botanical garden I was introduced to the botanical portrait. I love the process of botanical painting, a kind of meditation on the beauty of fine detail. -
Abstracts
I have been working on a couple of new series over the last few years. The first series was inspired by urban walls. I am interested in the way that applied layers interact with each other, each participating in the final surface. The painting process is almost a reverse archaeology, building strata in which I am the only one who knows what is buried. In the second series I have been exploring abstract forest scape, with brights “burning” through, creating a lattice of light and dark. -
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