Thursday, March 21, 2013

Artist Spotlight - Alison Moritsugu

As I was going through boxes at my internship, I found a gallery handout for Alison Moritsugu and I instantly wanted to do a post on her. This was the installation that had me so enamored:


I nearly exploded with excitement! My friend Sam and I have had several conversations about landscape painting. You can be a great artist and a skilled painter or drawer, but landscapes often run the risk of being repetitive and boring. Alison Mortisugu has totally rocked the landscape here. What makes this landscape so much more than a lighthouse or barn? 

The fragmented "canvas" (by the way, doing this on tree cookies? love, love, love) is awesome. This fragmentation of the picture allows the viewer to "fill in the blanks" creating a more visually stimulating experience. I love that the tree branches twist and turn through the piece. 

I don't know if you can tell, but the pieces of wood extend out to different lengths, creating more of a space for those who are seeing this in real life. 



Doesn't this picture just make you want to walk around the installation, looking at it from every angle? (That's how it makes me feel!)



This picture above is part of her log series, a sort of extension from her landscape series. This is what she has to say about it: “There is also a kitschy tradition of painting on log slices, which I like, I think that these works subvert painting and turn it into something else.” She had previously been painting on wood panels and had been looking for a way to make her paintings more of an object. She saw a wood pile and a lightbulb lit up! Something else that I enjoy about her landscape and her log series is that although they are a beautiful piece of art collectively, they are also small pieces of art individually. 


Wai Hookahe, 2007
Mixed media, 38" x 46½" x 46½" deep



If you're wondering a little bit about her... Alison Moritsugu was born and raised in Hawaii and left the islands after high school. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, she earned a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York. On return visits to Hawaii, she noticed the drastic changes to the local landscape. She not only has done the fragmented lanscapes but she created amazing wallpaper that features flowers and plants native to Hawaii. 


If you look within the design of the wallpaper, you can see the silhouettes of plants and animals. But she employs imagery as social commentary, picturing plant life that has driven out native forms in vivid colors, while the extinct and endangered plants and birds are seen as white contours. Here is a detail of that: 



In 1999, she created a piece for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. I was 9 then and I remember it, but barely. I wish I could see her again, I guess I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for her next show near me! 


1 comment:

  1. Alison is an amazing artist. Not only creative and gifted in different media but one who seems aware of what is transpiring in this changing world. Her works meld creativity and intellectual thought.

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