Alison Ambrosio

Bio

Alison Ambrosio was born at the end of the 20th century in Los Angeles California. She then moved to Mexico City at the tender age of nine months. The nature of her mother being a skilled seamstress exposed Alison to the combination of colors and textures from an early age. At the age of 15 years old, Alison moved back to California and while in high school, she got deeply involved in the costume design world. In 2018, Alison was accepted into Bowdoin College under the intended major of Theater Design to later switch to Visual Arts and Biology.

The first major interaction Alison had with the art world was in 2017, when she got an internship offer at Gagosian Gallery located in Beverly Hills. Once in College, where her interest in art fully developed, she participated in every Bowdoin College Visual Art Department Open House from 2018-2020. In addition to arts, at Bowdoin College she began an attraction towards science, which later became an important part of her art practice. Therefore, in 2019 she obtained a fellowship to further investigate cell signaling pathways.

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Artist Statement

I believe art and science support each other. Texture and color are influenced by chemical reactions, and genes can be represented as paintbrushes that can modify a whole system. I am interested in creating paintings that tell the story of the origin of things. As a scientist, I explore how to involve the idea of evolutionary development on my art practice, with the purpose of giving insight to what is blind to the eye. I unify the subject of my work around different parts of experimental phases and experimental subjects, while exploring a more aesthetic composition with the use of patterns, hues, and shapes. My artwork starts with an acrylic and oil painting. Then while creating patterns I add printing paper on some areas to add more texture to the canvas. Lately, I’ve been exploring to work on larger compositions and forms to relate abstraction and realism.   -Alison Ambrosio

Curatorial Statement

Artist Alison Ambrosio presents four vibrantly colored acrylic and oil paintings that explore the ideas of evolution through incorporating nature both visible and invisible to the naked eye. Inspired by her mother’s job of being a seamstress, Ambrosio’s incorporation of colors and textures marries together science and art to create an imaginative ecosystem within each painting. There is careful attention to detail, from specific color pairings, conscious placement of copy paper, and calculated moments in composition design, all elements are pieced together to merge into one cohesive story that narrates a specific scientific phenomenon. This mixed approach of realism and imagination is best exemplified through the painting that explores evolution through a fish’s body with a human’s arm extended out to touch a DNA strand. Left for the viewer to piece together, Ambrosio leaves enough contextual cues to guide her audience through a science lesson through art but not enough to overpower the viewer’s visual process.
–Audrée Grand’ Pierre