Artist Biography

Alison Foshee was born in San Diego, California in 1969.  She received a BA in Fine Art from Occidental College in 1991 and an MFA in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995. She shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, New York and Tokyo.  Her work has appeared in many publications; the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Artweekly, Sculpture Magazine and the New Yorker, to name a few. Alison Foshee currently resides in Portland, Oregon.  She calls her process the  “craft sciences”, which describes a high emphasis on finish and the elevation of low materials and traditional craft arts. While employing the scientific method of hypothesis and experimentation, She reveals something about the material’s original function that will inform its new shape and content.
Featured in our exhibit “The Four Seasons of Flora & Spice”

Artist Statement

Thumbtacks and pushpins explode into extravagant floral arrangements.  Staples trace the jagged contour of a leaf.  Office labels spin out in hot, firecracker explosions.

For many years I have been exploring the artistic potential of everyday “stuff”.  I enjoy working these raw materials with the geeky intensity of a Rubik’s cube puzzle master and relish the challenge of finding new meanings in objects that have become banal. In the process, I try to reveal something about the material’s original function that will inform its new shape and content.

In search of my muse, I scour our urban city centers, like an orchid thief in the Amazon, for weird and marvelous products like the next generation of folder dividers or the latest technology in bendable pencils. I find these readymade oddities ever fascinating because of their dual nature as consumable goods. They are simultaneously indispensable and without value; perhaps, a not-so-subtle metaphor for culture’s subjective/plastic definition of what is precious.

While materials have always been a defining element of my work, it is also important to me, the manner in which they are manipulated. This involves using the material as it was originally intended, but in an exaggerated way.  For example, The white office label, aside from being a surprisingly aesthetic product with subtle variations from bright white to cream, are effective tools for creating new meanings; an empty canvas that can signify anything. Its usefulness is based on a balanced system of raw data and personal interpretation. The information chosen is suddenly meaningful and that which is deselected becomes irrelevant.  Through layering and patterning, one is not only articulating an image, but the resulting “paintings” are depictions of a change of mind.

I often call my process the “craft sciences”. This self-definition not only describes a high emphasis on finish and the elevation of low materials and traditional craft arts, but also alludes to a natural science aesthetic in the work. This can mean overtly referential imagery, like finely articulated leaf structures to more abstract allusions to sub-atomic particles and cell clusters.  My fractal-like repetitive process and sense of visual hyperbole are fueled by scientific wonder but rely on an obsessive work ethic; a patience integral to craft and founded by artisans who steadfastly hunch over their looms and needles.