Alison Balcanoff

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ARTIST

BIO

Alison Balcanoff is a Chicago-area artist who primarily works with paper. Alison graduated from Suffolk University with her BFA in Fine Arts and obtained her MA in Art History and Museum Studies Certification from Northern Illinois University. She’s participated in several group exhibitions, most notably at the Hyde Park Art Center, The Foundry Art Centre, The Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, and the Terrain Biennial.

In addition to her studio practice, Alison has held positions in museums and arts administration. In her role as the Director of the St. Charles Arts Council she worked as a local arts advocate and curated several exhibitions. She’s also curated museum exhibitions, and her work in anthropological collections at The Field Museum and the Burma Art Collection at NIU has influenced her work as an artist: furthering her interest in specimens, cabinets of curiosities, and the natural world.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is an exercise in manipulating paper through cutting, folding, stitching, burning, and layering. The tactility of these processes induces an intimate relationship with the worked surface. My needles prod, poke, and mend. My blade dissects and eradicates. My burner sears. These very visceral acts are investigations--into my materials, myself, and the natural world.

It’s a process that I’ve adopted from watching my young children grapple with the world. As child-scientists, my children use experimentation and play to navigate the world around them and approach their natural environment with intense awe and curiosity. In turn, I’ve come to redefine my practice as that of an artist-scientist, using the creative process to heighten my awareness and to dissect and better understand the world around me.

The areas of inquiry I’ve been most driven to explore are forests as ecosystems, symbiotic relationships between organisms, and dichotomies in nature--especially that of chaos vs. order. For instance, my most recent work asks: what story the natural world tell? Is there an underlying order to things that, like Michaelangelo carving a figure out of stone, we just need to chisel away at to uncover? Or is life naturally chaotic, and we humans impose the order to find meaning, purpose, or comfort?

[Nature] Restored, acrylic, embroidery, and hand-burnt lines on paper, 6x6in