Allison Stewart Artist Statment

Allison Stewart

Artist Statement

Studio #12

Artists have always responded to the world around them. My paintings are inspired by the landscape, but they are not landscape paintings. They are reflections of my feelings about our changing environment, particularly the Louisiana coastal wetlands. Rising sea levels, climate change, shoreline erosion and human activity have all resulted in massive land loss along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Nowhere is it more evident than along the Louisiana coastal wetlands south of New Orleans, where, in the last eighty years, more than 2000 square miles of wetlands have sunk into the sea. It is this uneasy interaction between man and nature that interests me.

My paintings investigate the moments in life forms between order and chaos, between growth and decay. Patterns emerge and develop into ever changing forms. I experiment with these layered forms as if I am gazing at life unfolding under a microscope.

I use many materials and techniques in my painting process. Forms appear and dissolve under layers of paint and varnishes until they finally coalesce into an image that may be both familiar and unknowable. My process involves intuition and immediacy. The result is a visual diary of my feelings about nature in a state of flux and my place in it. As an artist I value the power of art that resonates, that is open to interpretation, that is of its own time, yet speaks to the lasting value of truth.

allisonjstewart@gmail.com