ART AT THE FORGE BAKING COMPANY

Abstraction provides the expressive vocabulary for my response to the global, persistent conflict and violence, creating emotive landscapes. The genesis for my work is the urban environ, more specifically the night city, graffiti, demolition, fire, windows, fences and walls. Each painting under goes a history of its own, as layers are added, scraped, overpainted, built and rebuilt-—the paintings evolve from depiction to a more personal, evocative terrain.

Central to the work are apocalyptic stories and contemporary parallels. Since medieval times, Babylon’s vision of ‘handwriting on the wall’ and the tower of Babel narrative have been sources for artists. For me, they have a contemporary echo in a world abounding with reoccurring images of violence and destruction. — Alyson Schultz