Alison Schmidt (Carson) is an award winning American Representational Fine Artist. She works in a variety of media, including both traditional and digital, and specializes in oil painting, graphite, and charcoal.
A strong proponent of education, Alison earned degrees, with honors, in both Painting and Illustration. She's an avid student of life and enjoys philosophy, physics, theology, art history, and contemporary literature. Since 2009, Alison has also been an educator, providing private art lessons, both individual and group, from her studio.
She is regularly featured in both solo and group exhibitions, has been published in a variety of art magazines, and highlighted in an assortment of blogs and web periodicals. Alison also participates in national and local competitions, winning the “Marquis Art Award” and was voted the reader’s choice 'Best Visual Artist' in 2011 in both The Weekender and Electric City Magazines. Her work is collected both nationally and internationally, and she is frequently working on commissions for a variety of clientele.
In addition to her full schedule as a active fine artist, Alison is also the curator for the Schulman Gallery in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. You can visit the Schulman Gallery website at www.luzerne.edu/schulmangallery
Inquiries on available works, commissioned works, workshops, private individual or group instruction, and/or for publication are always welcomed. Thank you visiting!
For additional printing options, like t-shirts, cell phone, ipads, and laptop cases, and more visit me on my Society 6 store front at http://society6.com/ASchmidtArt
Artist Statement:
My artwork is motivated by the unifying elements of the human experience and a challenge to the viewer to connect with themselves and each other. Living in an ever-increasing global community humans grow progressively more isolated. Differences are amplified; the “us versus them”, cutthroat, anti-empathy culture is pervasive. It is easy to judge thy neighbor when dehumanizing one another is commonplace. “Terrorist” “Freedom Fighter” “Racist” “Spic” “Scum Bag” “1%” “Elitist” “Stupid” “Christian” “Jew” “Atheist” “Beautiful” “Ugly” Every label, every judgment - no matter the history, no matter how devastating and demoralizing or seemingly benign - separates us.
Through my work, I look to tear away our superficial differences to reveal the sameness that inherently exists. We are connected in our shared humanity; we are connected in visceral ways. I am to reach the viewer at his or her core. Some of my immediate surfaces may be off putting to some, yet upon the slightest additional inspection those parts of our shared human experience are revealed: passionate, ferocious love or the quiet desperate longing, which grows to a deafening ache, as the distance between lovers grows to galaxies or the internal conflict bore from the crisis of identity, shouldered more than once just at puberty, but again and again as life molds, changes, and shapes us continuously. We are all united in these experiences, and it is these that make us human, these that form who we are. Our humanity knows not the delineations of our invention; it knows only of the organic. Will we continue to allow the masks of the players or the contrived superficial determine our ability to identify the boundless connection between us?
I will also be working on a series of painting of the available foster animals at A Positive Promise. These small paintings will be raffled off as they are made with all of the net proceeds benefiting the animals directly. More will come as this develops.
There is also a series drawings, inspired by vintage nude photography and pornography (which, is really so tasteful and gorgeous – I highly suggest checking some out. A lot of it is really artistically breathtaking!) in the works. So, expect to see some of these figures coming out in the next year or so.
Lastly, I will continue to produce small alla prima still life, landscape, and figurative studies. As always, my aim, in addition to well, painting, is to elevate all objects. Never is a composition arranged without contemplation or objects chosen without a narrative in mind. There is great beauty and an occasion for an exquisite story all around us, all the time. I hope to be able to capture those moments and tales in every work.
Alison Schmidt Carson joined Pixels.com Licensing on May 26th, 2008.
