Alison Williams
Full Time BFAMFA - Lesley University
BFA - Edinburgh College of Art
Contact
awilliams@nhia.edu
Teaching Philosophy
Gardening negotiates the boundary between imposing actions and reacting to nature's wildness. My art practice is informed by years of gardening. In both art and gardening, navigating the tension between an expected and a disrupted path has become synonymous with my pursuit of what constitutes beauty today. As a result, I have come to realize that my role is that of a facilitator. I set parameters and initiate material intersections. Then I am engaged in a relationship with how the materials assert themselves and move beyond the imposed parameters. My investigation of the potential properties of art objects has meant that the line between garden and art has become almost nonexistent. Burying photographs, decaying canvases, allowing dirt, water, and plants to create marks on different surfaces; to which I then introduce spray paint, stickers and transfers, forces me to further address the definition of what constitutes an art object. The results are unburied canvases, vessels which hold pigments from boiled flowers, plant matter sandwiched between glass sheets, books made from decayed photographs...what is to be done with these? The Wardian Case was a glass structure used to transport and display delicate and exotic plants. My glasshouse is designed to exhibit and contextualize the evidence I collected as a way to engage the viewer with my process, as well as engage them with the garden. What I did not anticipate, was the extreme to which the tool used to facilitate view would become subject to the same scrutiny as the work that is contained within. The beautiful tension between intent and reaction occurred again. The glasshouse is container of curiosities and curiosity itself.
Exhibition History
Two person exhibition: East Colony Art Gallery. Manchester. NH - June 2006
Two person exhibition: Gallery 121. Boston. MA - November 2005
Three person exhibition: Bromfield Gallery. Boston. MA - September 2005
Distinctions & Awards
Ist Place-Mixed Media Painting, Manchester Artist Association/Art in the Park - 2003