The paintings in Alison Hall’s magnificent new exhibition at Kate Werble Gallery, spirits (where the water tastes like wine) confront the idea of attention. Their detail and nuanced colors emphasize how an artwork can shift and change after a close and extended examination. In this contemporary moment of immediate imagery, Hall’s works defy fast consumption and build an understanding of what visual art, and looking, actually is.
Hall’s new paintings have an ethereal quality. Their color is deep and varied, yet they also seem to float outside of themselves. Her repetition of marks may feel familiar to those that know of her past work, like a line of long verse or a handwoven textile. However, these new paintings are more complicated, wild. Similar dots and lines in graphite run endlessly along her rich, oil-painted surface and the layered colors and nuance of the marks are more expressive.
In Virginia, Hall paints in an old building that was built at the turn of the century. Inside of this ramshackle workspace built out of hand-lettered signs is her jewel box of a studio - a perfectly imperfect space. Hall thinks of her blue and black works as two worlds that exist inside of her: the world of her studio in Southside, Virginia versus her life in Italy. They are different, but each requires the other.
Hall’s titles reference old song lyrics and familial stories that she uses to connect her paintings to the past, but, ultimately, her works are about the act of making. Every mark, tonal variation, and carefully mixed oil reflects sustained attention, empathy, and an investment in how the artwork operates in the here and now. Her paintings are thus like the ancient mythological character of Janus, a two-headed figure that faces opposite directions; one looking back and one looking forward.
Alison Hall (USA, b. 1980 in Martinsville, Virginia) received her BFA from Hollins University in 2001 (Roanoke, VA) and her MFA from American University in 2004 (Washington, DC and Corciano, IT). She has held numerous solo exhibitions including Galerie Gisela Clement, Bonn, Germany (2024 2022, 2018, 2016); Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY (2024); SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC (2022); Stephane Simoens Contemporary Fine Art; Knokke, Belgium (2021); Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA (2019, 2015); Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO (2019); Washington and Lee University, Staniar Gallery, Lexington, VA (2019); Selected Art Models (SAM), Cologne, Germany (2018); Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA (2013); William King Museum, Abingdon, VA (2013); and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (2012). Hall received the Spaceworks Studio Lottery in 2014, a Bethesda Urban Partnership Fellowship in 2011 and a Professional Fellowship at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, drawing in 2011. After moving from New York to Virginia in 2021, Hall restored and rebuilt an old building to use as her primary studio in Roanoke, VA.