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encaustic workshop alison fullerton

Recent Awards/Recognition

2023 Camelback Gallery's "Shades of Blue" finalist

2022 Galerie Tangerine Salon Show, Nashville TN 

2022 Customs House Museum, Guild Show, Clarksville TN

2022 Camelback Gallery's “Faces 2022," received 2

bronze awards

2021 Vanderbilt University Women's Center- 2 commissioned portraits, permanent collection

2021 "Metamorphosis" National Juried Exhibition, Tubac Center of the Arts, AZ.
2021 DAC Gallery Regional Exhibition, 1st Place & Honorable Mention awards, Clarksville TN

2020 WAX FUSION, IEA encaustic magazine,  cover art and 6-page article

2020 10 Nashville billboards, ArtPOP Street Gallery,

Nashville, TN
2020 "Vignettes in Wax and Words" international exhibition, International Encaustic Artists

LINK to full-length ARTIST CV

BIO

Alison comes to Nashville via New York, Austin, and Stuttgart, Germany where she lived and immersed herself in European encaustics, German expressionism, and ceramics from 2016-2019. She traveled extensively across Europe studying with artists in several countries. She worked in a sculpture atelier with Birgit Feil, and was invited to membership in Stuttgarter Kunstlerbund, the oldest art guild in Germany. As a teen Alison studied fine craft and pottery at Rochester Institute's School of Craft before enrolling at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a Master's in Advertising. She worked in marketing and teaching, and in 2012 founded "Ms. Biz Youth Entrepreneurs." a STEM/Maker education initiative teaching creative coding & entrepreneurship to kids. In 2016 she moved to Germany and became a full time artist.

Alison has exhibited in the US and Europe in galleries and museums, at Vanderbilt University, and has authored articles about encaustic wax. Her work was recently on 10 Nashville billboards, on the cover of Wax Fusion magazine, and she was invited to teach and speak at the International Encaustic Association's National conference.

 

Alison combines organic, ancient materials such as encaustic and clay, with new hi-tech textiles and construction materials. Her abstracts combine encaustic with textiles, paper, clay, tar, lime putty and shellac. Alison takes a maker-centered, experimental approach, learning by tinkering with nontraditional media. She is inspired by abstract artist Mark Bradford, "If Home Depot doesn't have it, Mark Bradford doesn't need it."

Artist Statement

I am interested in exploring the materiality and dimensionality of things and in relationship with one another. There is meaning in old materials, and also with new man-made materials which have fascinating properties. I find beauty and comfort in organic, ancient mediums such as encaustic and clay; and am absolutely sparked when I discover ways to combine the old with the new. That symbiosis, when it works, is absolute harmony. My new abstract wall sculpture is born out of frustration with non sustainable packaging. It is my hope that the viewer finds comfort in the patterns, form, and tactile nature of my works, and that they spark curiosity about the sustainability of man-made materials.   


Visual Anthropologies--portrait series works

I have always been curious about culture & anthropology. My career in consumer marketing frequently took an anthropological approach.  We conducted ‘ethnographies,’ observing how people lived and shopped.  In 2016 I moved to Europe where I traveled, studied cultures and painted for 3 years. It is fascinating to me how well cultures are preserved in Europe, country to country. Hop a border, and people are suddenly different. I documented the nuances of my observations, such as the smiling eyes of the Irish, in my paintings.

 

Returning to America in 2019 I struggled with my identity as an American. I began reading about indigenous women and discovered so much untold history about Native Women, and their role as warriors protecting their land and families. Euro-American culture perpetuates a fictional “princess” stereotype of native women, yet many women  fought lockstep with men and became highly respected leaders. Native Women Warriors was my first 'American' anthropology, and this series was featured on 10 Nashville billboards during the pandemic, in early 2020, to inspire resilience. 


Visual Anthropologies (portrait series work):

  • Protest Singers 

  • World Healers- eastern, African, and western medical healers

  • Native Women Warriors- historically accurate portraits of native women who fought for their tribes

  • Vetted Souls- faces of homeless US military veterans

  • Irish Eyes- street portraits from Ireland

  • Into the Wilderness- reflections during the COVID pandemic 

  • Delta Blues- Mississippi blues artists who performed in juke joints and had little commercial success, but greatly influenced American Blues music

  • Ordinary Environmentalists- everyday folks working to make change environmentally

  • The Outsiders- portraits of visionary self taught artists, creating outside of art world norms

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