Reviews & Interviews
The Artist Index: Podcast Episode 40: Alison Wells
August 2020
____________________________________________________
On The Boston Chronicle
I am so very honored to have been part of the Boston Chronicle5, WCVB segment on New Bedford that aired
September 7, 2017. View below:
http://www.wcvb.com/article/new-bedford-renewal-a-new-vitality/12194099
Thanks to producer Sangita Chandra for doing an amazing job on the entire 30 min segment. She and her team spent a week in New Bedford filming and enjoying all what New Bedford has to offer.
September 7, 2017. View below:
http://www.wcvb.com/article/new-bedford-renewal-a-new-vitality/12194099
Thanks to producer Sangita Chandra for doing an amazing job on the entire 30 min segment. She and her team spent a week in New Bedford filming and enjoying all what New Bedford has to offer.
Alison Wells on LandEscape Magazine
So honored to be on the cover of landEscape Magazine June 02, 2015
Collage show skillful...
By Don Wilkinson
Contributing writer
The Standard Times
May 10, 2012 2:35 PM
Many people think that collage is an easy art form to master. With nostalgic kindergarten memories of construction paper, blunt-tipped scissors, and edible paste, it is deceptively simple to adapt a "my kid could do that" attitude about collage, and dismiss it as a lightweight craft hobby, akin to scrapbooking.
The reality is that a successful collagist has to have a particular and refined skill set: a strong sense of composition, the ability to use layering as a drawing and/or painting tool, the patience of a saint, and the manual dexterity of a surgeon.
"Collage 02740," an exhibition of work by Trinidad-born artist Alison Wells, currently on display at the Colo Colo Gallery, is a showcase on how to do collage right. Wells, who has lived in the United States for eight years, is an accomplished painter and art educator. The theme of the exhibition, as is referenced by the postal zip code in the show's title, is a select section of downtown New Bedford, primarily the area east of Sixth Street, down to the waterfront.
"Rooftop Gazing" is a particularly sweet and beguiling work. Shards of torn paper, in shades of aqua, teal and cream, define a fanciful sky, delineated by fine slivers of paper, representing boat masts, projecting upward from the harbor below. Elements of the elevated view of rooftops and waterfront include materials as diverse as shimmery copper foil, graph paper, green foliage torn from a magazine photo, and miniscule snippets of text, far removed from their original sources.
Vibrant pink blossoms bring lusciousness to Wells' image of New Bedford City Hall, a study in terra cotta red and deep gray. The steeple of the First Baptist Church, farther up the hill on William Street, is clearly visible in the background of "City Hall in Bloom." Another work, "Red Sky at Morning ... Sailor Warning," features three brilliant red boats, afloat on choppy, deep blue water. A sky of rich yellows, speckled with greens and crimsons, envelop all.
"Star Store" is an elegant representation of the old department store, now home to both the UMass Dartmouth College of Visual and Performing Arts, and a number of classrooms of Bristol Community College. Slate gray dominates the color scheme, and a weave of paper alludes to cross-hatching technique.
With a few exceptions, Wells' downtown New Bedford is devoid of people. In "Ollie Over Cummings," a young skateboarder in a bright red wool cap hovers mid-flight over the street. The sky is as pastel as a roll of Necco Wafers, and the rich velvety blue rectangular windows of the Cummings Building solidly anchor the piece.
Wells make visual reference to the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass in several works, including a collage of his Seventh Street home, but most notably in "I had little to Fear in New Bedford"¦they stood aside and let me pass." The image is decidedly more illustrative and less loose than much of the other work, and it is a dignified and effective portrait.
Wells' exhibition is strong, but a bit too safe. Her downtown New Bedford is beautiful, highlighting bethels and cupolas and statues and scenic vistas, but there is none of the underbelly that most New Bedford residents know. There are no abandoned storefronts, no smokers outside the National Club, no idling buses billowing exhaust. Perhaps that will be the subject for another show.
"Collage 02740" will be on exhibit at the Colo Colo Gallery, 19 Centre St., until May 21.
Wells shows off recent Collages in "Collage 02740"
Press Release
Trinidad born, New Bedford Artist Alison Wells, captures the essence of Downtown New Bedford in her solo exhibition “COLLAGE 02740”. Her recent offerings of paper collages will be on view at Colo Colo Art Gallery, 29 Centre St. from May 3 – May 21
Wells depicts a side of Downtown New Bedford life and history that is tactile, memorable and alluring through the medium of paper collage. “Downtown New Bedford has been my home away from home for the past 7 and a half years” says Wells who came to the city from Trinidad to pursue a MFA in painting at The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth in 2004. “I wanted to depict downtown in a way that expressed the sweet and sometimes bittersweet facets of the things that make this quaint and quirky part of the city what it was yesterday and is today.”
Wells examines how downtown New Bedford serves as a source of inspiration throughout her career in the United States, at first subconsciously and now quite consciously. She is influenced greatly by its rich architecture, its fascinating hidden histories, its multicultural and ethnic backbone and of course the rich artistic veins that pumps the city with life and vitality.
Wells manipulates this versatile medium of collage to transform her works into mesmerizing shifts in color, value and dimension by incorporating a wide variety of cut and torn papers to her palette. Each collage forms a bridge across time and culture to express her unique artistic vision and narrative.
Alison’s paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in the United States, the Caribbean and Europe. Wells was selected to exhibit her work at the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai, China and in 2011 she was awarded an artist grant from the Brookline Commission for the Arts, (under the Massachusetts Cultural Council). Some of her most recent shows have been at The Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, Massachusetts, The Brookline Art Center Gallery, Brookline, Massachusetts and Clover Fine art Gallery, Brooklyn New York.
Wells is also an Adjunct Art Professor at Bristol Community College and she teaches after school programs in downtown New Bedford to kids and teens. Some of these include the Historical Society’s “Hidden History” programs; The Friends of the New Bedford Free Public Library together with the New Bedford Art Museum’s “Art in Words” program and Artworks’ Cool Kids summer programs along with Art therapy classes with war Veterans at the Veterans Transitional House. Alison gives private lessons at her studio located in the Cummings Building, 96 William St., Studio #3, New Bedford.
Collage 02740 runs from May 3 - May 21 2012. Opening Reception: Saturday May 5, 2012 5:00pm - 8:00pm. Meet the Artist - Aha Night May 10, 7:00 - 9:00pm.
For further information please contact: Alison Wells at [email protected] or 774-526-6550 Alison’s work can be viewed at her studio at The Cummings Building, studio # 3, 96 William St, New Bedford MA 02740
Caribbean Artist Alison Wells talks of home in her recent paintings at the Brookline Art Center Gallery
By Susan Navarre
Director Brookline Art Center Gallery
“Home is Memory, Memory is Now” which opens at the Brookline Art Center Gallery on August 29, 2011 through October 7, 2011, offers compelling insights into group relationships and cultural bonds that transcend geographic and historic differences. In her recent body of work Trinidadian Artist Alison Wells discusses ideas of culture, identity and the shifting concepts of home.
“The vital role we all play within our communities conveys a universal message of home being an instrument of culture and Power. It can be interpreted literally when we are inspired by different landscapes and sceneries but also we can be inspired by a certain identity associated with specific places we call home” says Wells.
In Alison’s acrylic and mixed media works on paper and canvas, paint melts in and out of ambiguous space throughout the picture plane reminiscent to fragments of memories, constantly soaring in and out of the conscious and subconscious mind.
Wells’s paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in the United States, the Caribbean and Europe, and her work was selected to represent her country at the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai, China.Opening Reception for “Home is Memory, Memory is Now” is Saturday, September 10, 2011, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. and it is supported in part by the Brookline Commission for the Arts, a local group which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. The exhibition will culminate with a mixed media collage workshop for kids and teens on theme of home and place.
Alison Wells - Inside the mind...
By Afiya Ray
Trinidad Express
Sep 30, 2011
Story Updated: Sep 30, 2011 at 10:38 PM ECT
The young girl burnt with humiliation even as she joined the derisive laughter that surrounded and threatened to choke her.
She sat at the centre of the class, wishing she could reverse time, if only to the past 15 minutes, so that she could take back the words she had uttered- the words that had caused her teacher to ridicule her and her friends to mock her. As she sat and joined the laughter, the young girl felt as though her dreams were dwindling before her eyes. They never died.
Today that young girl has succeeded in establishing at least part of her dream, as she is now a renowned artist who has done showings all over the world.
At 38, and secure in the career of her choice, Alison Wells can now genuinely laugh at those early years when others around her doubted her potential.
"I doubted it myself," Wells, who currently resides in the United States, conceded during an interview with Express Woman. "I had this teacher in high school who ridiculed me in front the class for saying I wanted to be an artist and to have an art gallery in Paris. She said I was going to starve and I believed her and laughed along with her and everyone else in the class. After that, I kept fighting the urge to follow my calling, but remarkable events would continuously occur to steer me back on my path as an artist, no matter how hard I tried to deny it and stray from my path."
Wells is today thankful that her parents and siblings always openly supported her dreams.
"That was all that mattered," she said simply. "I come from a very creative and artistic family and so I have always felt totally safe to express my talents and dreams among them."
Now that she has dismissed those early feelings of doubt, Wells spoke freely about her development as an artist, pointing to her early childhood as the first days when she identified her dream profession. She said though art was never encouraged as a real career at high school, she always knew her career path would have been a creative one.
After graduating from high school in 1992, Wells went on to study at the Caribbean School of Architecture in Jamaica and then to pursue an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, Jamaica.
"It was not until I was 25 and had recently finished my undergraduate degree as a painter that I really decided I was going to do this on a professional level," she said.
She began her formal career as a professional artist in 1998.
"It was soon after I returned from Jamaica after completing my undergraduate degree and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the art movement was more vibrant and lively than before I left in 1993," she said.
Full of heady dreams, the young artist went to work - developing her skill using acrylic and mixed media on canvas and paper as her medium for expression.
Admitting that a career as an artist is one that can be lucrative in spurts, Wells accepted a job to teach Art and design at St Joseph's Convent for 4 years before moving to pursue a Master's Degree in Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts in the United States in 2002.
After completing her degree, Wells made the decision to develop her career in the United States and to take advantage of some of the opportunities available to artists in North America. She has been residing there for the past seven years.
Her career has grown by leaps and bounds.
Her paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Europe. Her appearances include a live-work programme in London; D'art Contemporaine residency in Pont Aven, France; the Mutual Life Gallery in Kingston, Jamaica; the New Bedford Art Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts and the National Museum of Trinidad and Tobago in Port of Spain.
In 2009, Wells was selected to exhibit her work at the Fifth Summit of the Americas held in Port of Spain and in 2010 she was one of five Trinidadian artists to have their work represent Trinidad and Tobago at the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai, China.
Over the years, she has produced countless pieces, crediting the late Leo Glasgow, the late Pat Bishop, Leroy Clarke and Carlisle Harris, as major influences on her work, particularly her vibrant and energetic use of colour, movement and figurative abstractions.
"My homeland is reflected in my work through the use of sometimes vivid colour combinations, the fluid application of paint dripping and melting in and out of the picture plane," she said. "There is a lot of organic movement in my work that is reminiscent of my Caribbean background which is more organic than geometric in its landscape as well as the spirit and energy of the people."
Wells identified other artists from around the world as influences. They are German painter Anselm Kiefer for his enormous paintings heavy with tactile textures, and Gerhard Richter for his expressionistic flow of paint and colour; African American painter Kara Walker who is known for her striking black and white life-size silhouettes of slave narratives; Swoon, a female street artist whose brilliant wheat paste cutouts which are now featured in top US museums were once seen on abandoned buildings and walls in Brooklyn and Cuban painter Wifredo Lam for his deconstructed figures in ambiguous space.
As she develops and produces her own work, Wells acknowledges that life as an artist is not as easy as it may seem.
"It involves a lot of work that does not stop at the studio," she said. "You have to become your own PR person, advertising agency, writer, everything and that part alone is another full time job," she laughed. "For most of us in the arts it is a career that has chosen us and we can't imagine a life without making art, so therefore we do what we have to do — whether it is having a second or third job or roughing it through the hard times. One thing is for certain — the work must be made; the voice must be heard."
Wells' career has certainly grown past her early days when she struggled to make a living as an artist.
"Now I only teach part time at the college level while still pursuing a full time artist career," she said.
Perhaps one day she may return to Trinidad, but Wells believes that the industry for artistic expression should be further developed.
"We have not reached there as yet," she said. "However we do have many dedicated people in the arts plugging through and trying to educate the public about the importance of the arts in our schools and our society. In my view, the lack of art and creative expression is reflected in the events that take place daily in this country. Our society is craving it, though this awareness and appreciation needs to come from the top first."
In the meantime, as the country continues to make steps in that direction, Wells is encouraging fellow Trinidadian artists to continue to pursue their dreams.
"Do what you love and the money will follow," she said.
Work by Alison Wells can be purchased from her website at http://www.alisonwells.com
Trinidad Express
Sep 30, 2011
Story Updated: Sep 30, 2011 at 10:38 PM ECT
The young girl burnt with humiliation even as she joined the derisive laughter that surrounded and threatened to choke her.
She sat at the centre of the class, wishing she could reverse time, if only to the past 15 minutes, so that she could take back the words she had uttered- the words that had caused her teacher to ridicule her and her friends to mock her. As she sat and joined the laughter, the young girl felt as though her dreams were dwindling before her eyes. They never died.
Today that young girl has succeeded in establishing at least part of her dream, as she is now a renowned artist who has done showings all over the world.
At 38, and secure in the career of her choice, Alison Wells can now genuinely laugh at those early years when others around her doubted her potential.
"I doubted it myself," Wells, who currently resides in the United States, conceded during an interview with Express Woman. "I had this teacher in high school who ridiculed me in front the class for saying I wanted to be an artist and to have an art gallery in Paris. She said I was going to starve and I believed her and laughed along with her and everyone else in the class. After that, I kept fighting the urge to follow my calling, but remarkable events would continuously occur to steer me back on my path as an artist, no matter how hard I tried to deny it and stray from my path."
Wells is today thankful that her parents and siblings always openly supported her dreams.
"That was all that mattered," she said simply. "I come from a very creative and artistic family and so I have always felt totally safe to express my talents and dreams among them."
Now that she has dismissed those early feelings of doubt, Wells spoke freely about her development as an artist, pointing to her early childhood as the first days when she identified her dream profession. She said though art was never encouraged as a real career at high school, she always knew her career path would have been a creative one.
After graduating from high school in 1992, Wells went on to study at the Caribbean School of Architecture in Jamaica and then to pursue an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, Jamaica.
"It was not until I was 25 and had recently finished my undergraduate degree as a painter that I really decided I was going to do this on a professional level," she said.
She began her formal career as a professional artist in 1998.
"It was soon after I returned from Jamaica after completing my undergraduate degree and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the art movement was more vibrant and lively than before I left in 1993," she said.
Full of heady dreams, the young artist went to work - developing her skill using acrylic and mixed media on canvas and paper as her medium for expression.
Admitting that a career as an artist is one that can be lucrative in spurts, Wells accepted a job to teach Art and design at St Joseph's Convent for 4 years before moving to pursue a Master's Degree in Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts in the United States in 2002.
After completing her degree, Wells made the decision to develop her career in the United States and to take advantage of some of the opportunities available to artists in North America. She has been residing there for the past seven years.
Her career has grown by leaps and bounds.
Her paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Europe. Her appearances include a live-work programme in London; D'art Contemporaine residency in Pont Aven, France; the Mutual Life Gallery in Kingston, Jamaica; the New Bedford Art Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts and the National Museum of Trinidad and Tobago in Port of Spain.
In 2009, Wells was selected to exhibit her work at the Fifth Summit of the Americas held in Port of Spain and in 2010 she was one of five Trinidadian artists to have their work represent Trinidad and Tobago at the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai, China.
Over the years, she has produced countless pieces, crediting the late Leo Glasgow, the late Pat Bishop, Leroy Clarke and Carlisle Harris, as major influences on her work, particularly her vibrant and energetic use of colour, movement and figurative abstractions.
"My homeland is reflected in my work through the use of sometimes vivid colour combinations, the fluid application of paint dripping and melting in and out of the picture plane," she said. "There is a lot of organic movement in my work that is reminiscent of my Caribbean background which is more organic than geometric in its landscape as well as the spirit and energy of the people."
Wells identified other artists from around the world as influences. They are German painter Anselm Kiefer for his enormous paintings heavy with tactile textures, and Gerhard Richter for his expressionistic flow of paint and colour; African American painter Kara Walker who is known for her striking black and white life-size silhouettes of slave narratives; Swoon, a female street artist whose brilliant wheat paste cutouts which are now featured in top US museums were once seen on abandoned buildings and walls in Brooklyn and Cuban painter Wifredo Lam for his deconstructed figures in ambiguous space.
As she develops and produces her own work, Wells acknowledges that life as an artist is not as easy as it may seem.
"It involves a lot of work that does not stop at the studio," she said. "You have to become your own PR person, advertising agency, writer, everything and that part alone is another full time job," she laughed. "For most of us in the arts it is a career that has chosen us and we can't imagine a life without making art, so therefore we do what we have to do — whether it is having a second or third job or roughing it through the hard times. One thing is for certain — the work must be made; the voice must be heard."
Wells' career has certainly grown past her early days when she struggled to make a living as an artist.
"Now I only teach part time at the college level while still pursuing a full time artist career," she said.
Perhaps one day she may return to Trinidad, but Wells believes that the industry for artistic expression should be further developed.
"We have not reached there as yet," she said. "However we do have many dedicated people in the arts plugging through and trying to educate the public about the importance of the arts in our schools and our society. In my view, the lack of art and creative expression is reflected in the events that take place daily in this country. Our society is craving it, though this awareness and appreciation needs to come from the top first."
In the meantime, as the country continues to make steps in that direction, Wells is encouraging fellow Trinidadian artists to continue to pursue their dreams.
"Do what you love and the money will follow," she said.
Work by Alison Wells can be purchased from her website at http://www.alisonwells.com
Transplanted
Press Release
Clover’s Fine Art Gallery presents “Transplanted,” an exhibit featuring five artists who launched their art careers in their homeland before continuing successful careers in the United States. This exhibition is an exquisite collection of multicultural works.
“Clover’s Fine Art Gallery’s mission is to showcase the works of diverse artists in all our exhibitions,” said Clover Barrett, gallery owner and curator. “The artists featured in “Transplanted” tell stories of their life journeys through their art and we are proud to feature them in the exhibit.”
Participating Artists include:
Alison Wells - Abstract painter, Wells, depicts the cultural diversity of her background in her work. She received a MFA from the University of Massachusetts and a BFA from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica. Wells has exhibited in the United States, the Caribbean and Europe. She was also chosen to represent her homeland, Trinidad, in the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai.
Roger Beckles - A Barbados native and realist painter whose experiences in his homeland as well as in the U.S. contributed to his active pursuits in the arts. After receiving a formal education at the School of Visual Arts, Beckles entrenched himself in a love affair with oil painting which has continued throughout his career.
Catriona Herd - Brooklyn-based Scottish artist, Catriona Herd, paints landscapes from outdoor sketches. She often exhibits in New York and Scotland and recently won a scholarship to paint at the Anderson Ranch Arts Centre in Aspen, Colorado.
Robert V. Reid - Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Reid was introduced to art by a myriad of Caribbean artists who became his role models. He has studied at The Art Students League in New York and at the School of Visual Arts.
Sophie Sejourne - This Brooklyn resident and French-born painter began her career in La Rochelle, France and studied at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Poitiers, France. She has also studied at the Art Students League in New York City. Sejourne’s work is concerned with the reinvigoration of modernist collage practice. Sejourne’s homeland is a continual source of inspiration for her paintings.
Clover’s Fine Art Gallery presents “Transplanted,” an exhibit featuring five artists who launched their art careers in their homeland before continuing successful careers in the United States. This exhibition is an exquisite collection of multicultural works.
“Clover’s Fine Art Gallery’s mission is to showcase the works of diverse artists in all our exhibitions,” said Clover Barrett, gallery owner and curator. “The artists featured in “Transplanted” tell stories of their life journeys through their art and we are proud to feature them in the exhibit.”
Participating Artists include:
Alison Wells - Abstract painter, Wells, depicts the cultural diversity of her background in her work. She received a MFA from the University of Massachusetts and a BFA from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica. Wells has exhibited in the United States, the Caribbean and Europe. She was also chosen to represent her homeland, Trinidad, in the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai.
Roger Beckles - A Barbados native and realist painter whose experiences in his homeland as well as in the U.S. contributed to his active pursuits in the arts. After receiving a formal education at the School of Visual Arts, Beckles entrenched himself in a love affair with oil painting which has continued throughout his career.
Catriona Herd - Brooklyn-based Scottish artist, Catriona Herd, paints landscapes from outdoor sketches. She often exhibits in New York and Scotland and recently won a scholarship to paint at the Anderson Ranch Arts Centre in Aspen, Colorado.
Robert V. Reid - Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Reid was introduced to art by a myriad of Caribbean artists who became his role models. He has studied at The Art Students League in New York and at the School of Visual Arts.
Sophie Sejourne - This Brooklyn resident and French-born painter began her career in La Rochelle, France and studied at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Poitiers, France. She has also studied at the Art Students League in New York City. Sejourne’s work is concerned with the reinvigoration of modernist collage practice. Sejourne’s homeland is a continual source of inspiration for her paintings.
Showing in Shanghai
David Boyce
The Standard Times
August 28, 2010
Artist Alison Wells is exhibiting five of her paintings at the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai, China. This is the first World Exposition on the theme of the city, titled "Better City, Better Life." Two hundred countries, international organizations, and businesses are currently participating in this event.
Wells is one of five Trinidadian artists chosen to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the expo this year. Her paintings on display are from her series "The Urban Organic," depicting the urban landscape and its effects on the human psyche. The 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai, China, which began May 1, runs to Oct. 31.
Wells graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with an MFA in painting in 2007, after having earned her undergraduate degree in fine arts in 1997 from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica.
She resides in New Bedford, and works as a full-time artist and part-time art instructor at Bristol Community College, Fall River; at ArtWorks! Partners for the Arts and Community, New Bedford; and the Brookline Art Center, Brookline. Her work can be seen at www.alisonwells.com, or visit her studio, Studio No. 1 at 96 William St., New Bedford.
David B. Boyce is senior arts correspondent for The Standard-Times. ARTicles appears biweekly.
Flesh or Fantasy?
By Raleigh Dugal,
Southcoast247.com Editor
May 07, 2009 12:00 AM
Alison Wells' exhibition “Flesh or Fantasy” is showing at the Colo Colo Gallery at 25 Center Street behind the New Bedford Whaling Museum, May 1-28. There will be a meet the artist session the weekend before the exhibition closes.
Describe your transition from Trinidad to the U.S. and it's impact on your artwork.I Left in 2004 to come here to do a master's degree at Umass. It's a different culture, different place, there was just the whole transition of going back to school. It had been seven years since my undergraduate studies. In Trinidad I was teaching high school and was established as an artist, but I waned to teach college.
The move affected my work tremendously. Climate changed my work, the color came out of my work immediately. I worked with the colors of the city, the lines and the forms, doing more geometric than the organic shapes I was doing before. The perspective of how I saw everything was changing. I minimized color and reintroduced it in a very different way than I was using it before. I've created a new construct, who I am now in the US is a mutation of who I was, but now I'm me. I've created my new self.
What kind of dichotomy is your exhibition's title reflective of?The name speaks to my ideas of home. I lived in Trinidad most of my life. Now here is my home, but I still go home at Christmas time. It plays with the concept of home: Where you are, where your base is. You turn into a chameleon. I notice my accent changing, little things. I am different, but when I go home I see so many changes. I'm Trinidadian, but now I am like this offshoot. When I am home the US seems like a figment of my imagination, and when I am here I know my culture is out there. I delved back into my carnivale culture, which means “farewell to flesh”.
Flesh is something real. Fantasy is something in your mind. “Carne”, flesh, “val”, to go. The carnivale in Trinidad and Brazil are steeped in slavery, where the slaves would dress up and imitate the plantation owners. People would eat a lot of meat and festivities, and when Ash Wednesday came they'd give it all up. I tied those two areas of home in, two sides of me living in the US and having different things and different surroundings and new things. Everything that has questioned me about race, sexuality, things like that, all tie into the title.
How does a gallery showing change the way viewers digest your pieces? Does a painting take on different characteristics as a part of a whole?There are 42 pieces in the show and so many levels of what I want to say through the work. My work is abstract or semi-abstract. I use the female form a lot, androgynous types of forms. Viewing the whole show as one, you get a really good sense of a world that is taking you through different levels. You have images of the classic palm tree, images that people identify. Immediately people think tourist destination, palm trees, warm, but its more than that. Good and bad. Iconic images abstracted into something more. I'm from the Caribbean, and people see me one way, but I am transforming that to a different level to take it. One of my friends came into the gallery and felt as though it was one piece, like an installation. They all related to each other. He said “I wish somebody would buy the whole thing and put it in a room.”
What artists influence your own work? Do you consider your paintings to fall into any particular genre?Before when I came there were many artists that influenced my work. My influences now are my surroundings, New Bedford, quaintness of the city. When I go home I seeing it in a different light, landscapes and the mountains, things I don't notice just living here. When I come back things are new again.
Now I teach (at BCC and Artworks), and I love to teach, it's not a ways to an end. Find something that you also love to do that helps.
How long, from conception to completion, is the journey for a typical painting of yours?It really varies, especially in terms of larger and smaller. The works in the showing are relatively small compared to my usual work. Most are 8x10's on canvas. Sometimes they work or they don't work, or you have a vibe going on and then it takes you. Small ones I work on about four at a time. I lay down colors and forms, let them dry and come back and layer and layer. Sometimes it might happen in a week for one of those, or sometimes a month.
Its a matter of patience. I am the artist, but it feels like there is another spirit that leads me on this show. The largest piece is called the Gathering, a very spiritual piece. It stems from Africa with the idea of spirit guides, and there is one main figure and others in the background, always in an abstract way. It's interesting how that piece came together, one step at a time, very rhythmic. It's interesting how working other smaller pieces all help to feed the bigger ones. How the unity of the whole show comes together.
As an artist, how do you persevere in the current economy?It is hard. People are making cutbacks, the first thing that goes is the arts. Feed, house, clothe yourself, that's everyone's concern. Where does art come into this? The reason why we are artists is because it's a part of us. It is who you are. I feel like if I don't do it I will shrivel and die. At this time it is a hard time, but I think we already know when you get into it you will need to have a second job. Many artists know they have a job, but their career is their artwork, so they maintain in creating.
ALISON WELLS -The URBAN ORGANIC
Article by Liz Tomasetti,
southcoast247.com correspondent
April 15, 2008 10:06 AM
Alison Wells stepped into the urban American landscape with the viewpoint of an outsider. She fell smitten, as well as fatigued, by the environments she has called home for four years now.
Arriving in New Bedford from Trinidad as a graduate student in the painting department of UMass Dartmouth, Alison became torn. The images she depicted during those initial months displayed cowering and self-protecting figures melding with harsh, geometric lines pulled directly from city architecture. She seemed to have developed an addiction to these energetic metropolitan environments, especially New York.
Visiting these areas she would thrive, but at the same time she discovered an element of them draining.
"Picasso was quoted as saying something like, we are all vessels. And in order to empty our vessels, we need to continuously fill them up."
As Alison's work changed over the course of her master's studies, she embraced the other side of her relationships with cities. She grew fascinated with their grit and grime. She acknowledged that cities had a dark side, rife with dirt, violence and racism, which in turn begin to leave their marks on the human psyche. As the representation of the figure left her paintings, a juxtaposition of thick, tactile surfaces with colorful organic forms surfaced. It became a balance of her new found environments combined with the Carribean elements of her culture.
Alison's senior body of work, titled "Belly of the Beast", is a particularly strong slew of paintings. The piece titled "Belly of the Beast #1" can be viewed as an aerial or landscape, Alison says, but I view it as pile of smoldering rubble. Controlled white areas weep over black above the suggestive architectural forms. It is a visceral combination of despair and strength.
Alison seems to not only thrive off cities but from teaching as well. With a long history as a teacher, she is currently an instructor for the Invest in Kids program through Artworks! which shows children how to explore their city through art. Another urban education program she teaches is through the New Bedford Historic Society. Through her paintings, life philosophy and community awareness, Alison has developed an incredible ability to find fascination, curiosity, and respect for the creatures that are our immediate environments.
As she discovered her balance in the tug of war she experienced with new cultures and environments, she seems to have discovered a balance in the communication of her paintings and her daily communication within the environments she is inspired by. Alison lives and works in New Bedford.
