Eromenos
2009, Oil, graphite, rabbit skin glue, gesso of bologna on panel, 4" x 4"

The Deep End
2010, graphite and venetian plaster on panel, 8' x 4'

Be it in the studio creating abstractions or in plein air making landscape paintings I approach the process of making art as an individual that seeks ritual and repetition. I develop relationships to the landscape while in plein air. Arriving at the same time every day, moving with the shadows when it is hot outside, understanding the rhythms of the people and animals that live near by; life becomes ritualistic as a landscape painter.

In the studio making abstractions about the landscape I am looking for similar rituals, be it through mark or thought.
My current work is about the phenomena of the landscape. Phenomena for me are the experiences that I have in the landscape that are beyond vision, the intangible. My drawings are influenced by memory, personal metaphor, and meditation. The most recent abstract drawings explore meditation through repetitive mark making. Landscape like forms build from tightly bundled graphite marks.

The drawings are laborious and physical, sometimes taking months to cover in graphite blocks. Personal metaphors build when the landscape like forms mutate, becoming veils or skin. From there my life experiences and memories create associations to the imagery. Each work for me is not about one idea, it is about the emotional event, that must be searched for and clarified.

Source materials and subject matter from Italian altarpieces and panel paintings are ever present in my recent work. My drawings are made on wooden panels, like the altarpieces of Giotto and Cimabue. My surfaces are prepared with an ancient Italian recipe using gesso of bologna and rabbit skin glue. This process creates an immediate relationship for me to the subject matter of the religious paintings I admire. Each panel has fourteen layers of this gesso and they are sanded between each layer. I kneel and sand for weeks. The dedication to this preparation reminds me of the repetitive mark making found in my drawings; from start to finish they have qualities of devotion, labor and silence.
November 11, 2010

Alison Hall
540.344.4356
alisonchall@mac.com
alisonchall.com