Alison Van Pelt • ABOUT

ALISON VAN PELT

Alison Van Pelt was born and raised in Los Angeles. She studied art at UCLA, Art Center, Otis Parsons and the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. Raised in the open-minded climate of 1970's Los Angeles, she has been influenced by such disparate sources as Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Paramahansa Yogananda, Helmut Newton, Dan Millman, Yayoi Kusama and Hunter S. Thompson (just to name a few). The subjects of her paintings range from animals to prizefighters to celebrities, spiritual leaders, Native American warriors and heads of state. Utilizing found images of these figures, she begins the complex process of drawing and painting a classical portrait, then blurring and rebuilding the oil on the canvas, accumulating and disintegrating, until the result is a beautiful, purposely-degraded, mystical evocation of her subject. Her painstaking technique, with its exquisite light and shadow, layers upon layers of paint, ambiguous, yet meticulous, brush strokes, coalesced by her discipline and meditative touch, brings out the best in her subjects. The paintings are revealing yet mysterious; they are not idealized, but humanized.

Van Pelt's work has been exhibited in solo shows at The Fresno Art Museum and The Dayton Art Institute, as well as in galleries throughout the North America and Europe, and is represented in significant public collections, such as the Armand Hammer Museum, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Jumex Foundation in Mexico City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, NASA, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. She currently lives and works in Santa Monica, CA.

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	ALISON VAN PELT Alison Van Pelt was born and raised in Los Angeles. She studied art at UCLA, Art Center, Otis Parsons and the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. Raised in the open-minded climate of 1970's Los Angeles, she has been influenced by such disparate sources as Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Paramahansa Yogananda, Helmut Newton, Dan Millman, Yayoi Kusama and Hunter S. Thompson (just to name a few). The subjects of her paintings range from animals to prizefighters to celebrities, spiritual leaders, Native American warriors and heads of state. Utilizing found images of these figures, she begins the complex process of drawing and painting a classical portrait, then blurring and rebuilding the oil on the canvas, accumulating and disintegrating, until the result is a beautiful, purposely-degraded, mystical evocation of her subject. Her painstaking technique, with its exquisite light and shadow, layers upon layers of paint, ambiguous, yet meticulous, brush strokes, coalesced by her discipline and meditative touch, brings out the best in her subjects. The paintings are revealing yet mysterious; they are not idealized, but humanized. Van Pelt's work has been exhibited in solo shows at The Fresno Art Museum and The Dayton Art Institute, as well as in galleries throughout the North America and Europe, and is represented in significant public collections, such as the Armand Hammer Museum, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Jumex Foundation in Mexico City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, NASA, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. She currently lives and works in Santa Monica, CA. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
HOME ARTWORK PRESS/ BIBLIOGRAPHY COLLECTIONS CONTACT
HOME ARTWORK PRESS/ BIBLIOGRAPHY COLLECTIONS CONTACT	EDUCATION 1992-1993 1988-1989 1986-1987 1981-1982 SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2006 2004 2002 2000 1999 1998 1997 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 1998 1996	Florence Academy of Art, Florence, Italy Otis-Parsons, Los Angeles, CA Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA University of California at Los Angeles, CA Alison Van Pelt, The Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA The Women, The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH America: The News, Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Paintings on Paper, Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Fight, Ochi, Los Angeles, CA Flight and the Figure, Ochi, Ketchum, ID Figures, Gallery 813, Los Angeles, CA Blue, Galerie Lauter, Mannheim, Germany Eros, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Motion, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Les Animaux Nouveaux, Galerie Vedovi, Brussels, Belgium Blue, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA New Paintings, Galerie Lauter, Mannheim, Germany New Works, Galerie Aschenbach, Amsterdam, Netherlands Recent Works, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA New Paintings, Roger Smith Gallery, New York, NY New Work, Galerie Paul Sties, Kronberg, Germany New Paintings, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Nouvelles Oeuvres, Ulla Lutz Studio, Basel, Switzerland La French Collection, Les Andelys, France Tableaux Nouveaux, Ader Tajan, Paris, France New Works, B-1 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Incognito, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA California Art, Platt/Borstein Galleries at American Jewish University, Bel Air, CA L.A. Art Scene: Selected works by local artists from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Beverly Hills Municipal Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA Small Wonders II, Pharmaka Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Portraits, curated by Shane Guffogg, Pharmaka Gallery, Los Angeles, CA The Eclectic Eye: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Weisman Museum of Art Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA Spike Gallery, New York, NY California State University at Bakersfield, Bakersfield, CA Spike Gallery, New York, NY Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV AH Allen: A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg, New York, NY Track 16, Santa Monica, CA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA