Elements of Change: Rebecca Alston and Allison Stewart
IP Casino Resort Spa Exhibitions Gallery
March 8 – June 8, 2019
“Elements of Change” consists of works on paper and installations that explore visual systems and the contemporary political, social, and environmental issues that surround climate change. Through their very different individual voices, the artists manifest in visual terms the many aspects of living in a rapidly changing world. Together, the artists’ contrasting approaches comprise a timely exhibit about our changing environment.
In the exhibit, the artistic approaches of the artists contrast in their address: one speaks to and about nature, while the other concerns herself with invention of form and the investigation of its effects. But the art of the two women constitutes two sides of the same coin: survival and evolution in the early 21st century, requiring increased awareness, increased sensitivity, and increased ingenuity. Both Alston and Stewart employ abstract form and composition and rich, vibrant palettes, the better to attract attention to their broader concerns while providing the mystery and pleasure of art itself.
Rebecca Alston was born in Mississippi and has lived and maintained her studio in New York City since 1983. Alston is an interdisciplinary artist and architectural designer. Alston is known for innovative and experimental mixed media works on paper, canvas, reliefs and space. Her most recent work explores the tension between environmental, social, and political issues. She holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from Auburn University, a Master’s of Architecture From KSU and postgraduate work at NYU & Harvard.
Trained as a biologist, New Orleans-based painter Allison Stewart approaches her work organically, using intuition and gesture to communicate her sense of the uneasy balance between humanity and nature. Situated in the space between realism and abstraction, her landscape paintings reflect her feelings about beauty and loss, time and transformation. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science from Spring Hill college in Mobile, AL and a Master’s of Fine Arts from the University of New Orleans.
