Alison Cooley

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Alison Cooley was born in Washington, DC and studied at Sarah Lawrence College. Cooley’s atmospheric abstraction draws on material juxtapositions and a language of repetitive markings, ink blooms, etchings, and organic elements to explore the beautiful, continuous cycles of the natural world. Symbols in the paintings replicate, change, fade, and return through the work creating a subtle tension that examines themes of compliance and resistance, harmony and dissonance, certainty and illusion. Cooley’s work has been exhibited and represented by galleries in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Charlotte, and Richmond.

Born 1973 Washington, DC

Education

Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville NY
Corcoran School of Art, Washington DC

 

Select Solo Exhibitions

2022
“Elysium,” Tappan, Los Angeles

2021
“Aether,” Tappan, Los Angeles

2021
Anniversary Exhibition, Sozo Gallery, Charlotte NC

2020
“Perenne,” Tappan Collective, Los Angeles

2019
Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA

2019
Adkins Arboretum, Ridgely MD

2013
Graficas Gallery, Nantucket MA

2011
Sweet Tides, Thos. Moser Showroom, Washington DC
Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket MA

2009
Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA

2008
Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket MA
Hoadley Gallery, Lenox MA

2007
Hoadley Gallery, Lenox MA
Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket, MA

2006
Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket MA
Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA
Page Waterman Gallery, Wellesley MA

2005
Susan Calloway Fine Arts, Washington DC

2004
Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA
Susan Calloway Fine Arts, Washington DC

2001
Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA

Select Group Exhibitions

2018
CrossCurrents, Salisbury University, Salisbury MD

2017
Future Lovers, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA

2015
Paper Prodigies, Sozo Gallery, Charlotte NC

2015
Human Botanica, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA

2013
SaoHouse, Montreal Canada

2010
Two Person Exhibition, Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket MA

2009
Sanctuary, Egan Institutes of Maritime Studies, Nantucket MA

2007
Two Person Exhibition, Susan Calloway Fine Arts, Washington DC

2006
All Paintings Great & Small, Cooley Gallery, Old Lyme CT

2005
Page Waterman Gallery, Wellesley MA
Whitlock Gallery, Nantucket MA
The Art Colony on Nantucket: 60 Years of Contemporary Art, Egan Institute of Maritime Studies, Nantucket MA

2004
Whitlock Gallery, Nantucket MA
Nantucket in SOHO, Studio di Modica, New York NY
Artweek 2004, Choral Arts Society, Baltimore MD

2003
Whitlock Gallery, Nantucket MA
Page Waterman Gallery, Wellesley MA

2002
Whitlock Gallery, Nantucket MA

2001
Featured Artist Exhibition, AAN Gallery, Nantucket MA
South Wharf Gallery, Nantucket MA

2000
South Wharf Gallery, Nantucket MA
Art in the Parlor, Nantucket MA

1999
Work, Work, Work, New Gallery, Nantucket MA
Art in the Park, Nantucket MA

 

Selected Bibliography

“Arts + Power,” DC Modern Luxury
“Eye Candy,” Domino Magazine
“Remembering Space,” Richmond Arts Review
“Alison Hall Cooley at Old Spouter Gallery,” Inquirer & Mirror
“In Touch with Island Rhythms,” Art of the Cape & Islands
“In the Studio with Alison Hall Cooley,” Nantucket Independent
“Featured Artist: Alison Hall Cooley,” Nantucket Island Living
“Eye of the Beholder,” N Magazine
“400 Notable People on the Cape & Islands,” Cape Cod Life
“Beauty of Cooley’s Work in Eye of the Beholder,” Inquirer & Mirror
“Arts Record: Cooley’s Azorean Influence,” Nantucket Independent
“Forty Under 40,” Nantucket Independent
“Alison Hall Cooley at Calloway Fine Art,” The Georgetowner
“Landscape & Atmosphere: Alison Hall Cooley’s Intuitive Interest,” Nantucket Independent
“Navigations Through Open Space,” Cape Cod Life

 

Awards and Honors

2006
George Smith Award, Artists Association of Nantucket

2002
People’s Choice Award, Artists Association of Nantucket

2000
Charles C. McDougall Award for Promising New Artist, AAN
Juror’s Award, Artists Association of Nantucket Gallery

1999
Juror’s Award Artists Association of Nantucket Gallery

My work focuses on memory of spaces. Expansive color planes, shooting and falling lines, and etchings overlap and move within an underlying composition suggestive of landscape. Textures and values interweave to create a suspension of visual spaces reflective of memory construction. As color fields stack and unfurl delicate markings orient the viewer and provide a handle for the eye. This dislocation produced by plane and color is steadied by navigation of line.