The paintings in Unfolding Journey venture between extremes; the paint is thick and thin, warm
and cool, vibrant and subtle. The images are real and abstract and point of view is vast or flat
or birds eye view. The process is usually painstaking but occasionally spontaneous. Each layer
of paint contains windows of past colors and shapes, luminescent washes and scraped lines
that create heavily textured paintings teetering between the abstract and the literal. All of
these disparate elements weave together, a crazy quilt tapestry of patchwork colors and etched
lines throughout the soft hills.
After my last show I was mesmerized by the activity of twining and warping old cloth strips in
the process of braiding rugs. The critical thinking involved in making a painting does not enter
into this process. There is no struggle. They are beautiful staccato stitches of vibrant color made
by braiding the warp and weft together.
Those lively stitches infatuate me and I have incorporated that spontaneity into the flowing
landscapes of Unfolding Journey. It is an effort to emphasize the strong abstract elements that
have always been present in my work. I have on occasion threatened to do away with the
horizon; at times the sky is only a one-inch band across the top of the painting. However, I can’t
seem to give up the structure that horizon and landforms provide. I have come to find that
realistic elements of the landscape provide the warp and weft in my paintings.
I wish you a long unfolding journey filled new discoveries and continuing revelations; a visual
trip with room for your own observations about landscapes, abstraction, color and place.
Allison Collins
