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.

I start painting with a specific site in mind, but over time, the paintings take different direction than initially intended. The journey is part of the process and excitement of abstraction — not always knowing what the outcome will be.

I have been a visual artist creating abstract paintings and drawings from myVernon Street Studio in Somerville MA. With a background in printmaking, a BFA from Southeastern Massachusetts University and a MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University, my postgraduate career has embraced painting large scale on door panels, making the experience for the viewer one-on-one. I am a founding member of the Brickbottom Artist Building, one of the country’s first and largest artist-developed live-work buildings.

An early review remains pertinent today. Addison Parks wrote, “Standing outside a panting is like facing a barrier. We are on the outside. Something is on the inside. Alyson Schultz recognizes this and uses it. She turns into reality something which might otherwise just be a metaphor. Her paintings document a process, and a struggle, one we all face every day, but in art as well.... Alyson Schultz makes something happen with her paintings that is a kind of a realism. By recreating the process of building up and knocking down what are all at once fences, filters, bar, masks, and facades, she is acting out something we all do, and will continue to do. It is a vicious cycle, but also nature. Human nature. She makes it a noble endeavor.”