Alison Rash: Beauty from Ashes

September 8th, 2018

We have a new series from Nebraska-based artist Alison Rash that we want to share today. A little background on the artist: she earned an MFA from Claremont Graduate University with a concentration in Painting in 2010. While at CGU, she was awarded the Claremont Graduate University Fellowship and the Walker/Parker Memorial Fellowship. She was also a Dedalus Foundation Fellowship Nominee and the Claremont Graduate University Art Fellow.

Rash earned an MA in Education from Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology in 2005 and a BA in Art from Pepperdine University in 2001. Her work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas and Washington D.C. as well as internationally in Paris, France; Venice, Italy and Tokyo, Japan.

This new series comes from the idea of Beauty from Ashes, and we will let the artist tell her story about the work, which is deeply personal.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about how we all have ashes. We all have pain. And big or small, there is beauty in us helping each other through the pain. When we experience trauma or loss, there is often something beautiful that is revealed. Maybe something we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.”

“The shape in these paintings comes from my mastectomy prosthesis. I’m not sure how to talk about that with viewers because the paintings are not about breasts, but about loss and ashes (and one of mine just comes in the shape of breasts – which are the least of my ‘losses’).”

“Each painting has a specific person’s name at the end. Someone who has touched me personally. Someone who has overcome loss.”

“Someone who finds a way to thrive even within the pain. ‘A’ is a friend of mine in chemo. She is younger than I am, has been fighting breast cancer since 2010 and has had brain mets for the last three years. She is amazing.”

“When I started these paintings, I found that they demanded more of me than the previous series. They asked me to DO something with them after removing the vinyl. It is kind of like they’ve been asking, ‘So now what are you going to do with this? With this story?'”