ALLISON STEWART: New Paintings August 13 – September 8, 2010 Opening Reception for the Artist: Friday, August 13, 6-8 pm David Floria Gallery is proud to announce the opening of its second solo exhibition of mixed media paintings on canvas and on paper by New Orleans and Snowmass Village artist Allison Stewart. The exhibition will consist of seven paintings on canvas and six works on paper. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Friday, August 13 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Allison Stewart’s work is clearly informed by her education in the field of biology. Her paintings are inspired by the natural environments that surround her, primarily the Louisiana coastal wetlands. However, her paintings don’t illustrate specific plant species, or specific locations. They address more complex issues concerning the relationships and balance between these fragile ecosystems and man’s desire to inhabit them. The paintings emerge as gestural, organic abstractions that are anchored in the tradition of landscape painting.

Stewart initiates a composition by drawing on the canvas with graphite, charcoal and occasionally crayon. Using both acrylic and oil based paint, she begins layering rounded shapes and plant-like forms using a rich palette of warm oranges, vermilions and yellows. Stewart says that she works on several canvases at one time, watching them evolve as a body of work rather than as isolated paintings.

Stewart comments about her own work: “I am a part of a thirty thousand year old tradition of making marks on a surface. Painting is a means to help me to recognize that we are a part of an interconnected web of life that ultimately we cannot dominate. For me, the act of painting is an intuitive process that relies on a building up of colors and forms. These forms gradually appear, only to disappear under layers of pigments and washes. Like dance, the process is one of directed motion and concentration. Like music, it is a series of calls and responses. Like humidity, it is more felt than seen. And like the tide, it ebbs and flows, helping me to appreciate the mysteries of life.”

Some of the work included in her show has been influenced by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Stewart says: “The ‘Vermilion Canto’ paintings reference the alterations to rhythms of marine life along the Louisiana coast, especially in Vermilion Bay, which has been heavily impacted by the oil spill. ‘Marsh Passing’ is inspired by photographs of the dying marsh grasses which knit the wetlands together into land masses. Without the marsh grasses, the land erodes into the sea.”

Allison Stewart has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Her work is included in many public, corporate and private collections, including the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies Program, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Historic New Orleans Collection, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Freeport McMoRan, Price Waterhouse Corp., Chase Manhattan Bank, ARCO, American Express, Pan American Life, and the Pensacola Museum of Art. Among the awards Stewart has received are an individual artist fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts in 1988, an individual artist grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in 1997, and the Mary Freeman Wisdom Foundation Grant in 1995. In 2005 she was awarded an Artist in Residence position at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado. In 2009 Stewart received an Artist Honoree award from the New Orleans Museum of Art. Stewart is also a cofounder of KID smART, a Louisiana based non-profit organization helping under resourced children in New Orleans learn about themselves and their world through the visual and performing arts. Please contact the gallery for more information at 970-544-5705. The exhibition is available at floriagallery.com.