ALISON HALL

1980
Born in Martinsville, Virginia

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and in Martinsville, VA. Hall looks to the ritual and repetition of her upbringing in rural Virginia, tempered with a devotion to early Renaissance artifacts in central Italy. Drawing on her ongoing study of patterns in the Arena Chapel’s fresco cycle by Giotto (Padua), Hall searches for visual systems in 13th century ceilings, floors and paintings. She de-constructs these – such as Giotto’s eight pointed asterisk constellations, diamond shaped grids and six pointed mosaic stars – conjuring her own geometric abstractions. Floating reflective graphite patterns over dense fields of oil pigment laid over sanded venetian plaster, Hall imbues these ritualistic rhythms with subtle movements and patterns. When she breaks from these, it reveals the surreptitious presence, like a tracking marker, of her hand, in the midst of rigorous abstraction.

Hall has had solo exhibitions at Clement & Schneider, Bonn, Germany, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA and Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO. She has been included in shows with Ross Bleckner, Andrew Forge, Michelle Grabner and others at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, NY, Kate Werble Gallery, NY, John Davis Gallery, Hudson, NY and McKenzie Fine Art, NY and has been exhibited at the Taubman Museum of Art, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and The William King Museum. In 2011, Hall was the recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship in Drawing and the Bethesda Painting Award.