About Allison Maletz

Allison Maletz is a contemporary mixed media artist. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design where she began as a documentary style artist-photographer. For years she traveled throughout the world making photographs about being normal, yet misplaced. During her sojourn in London while completing her MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, Maletz started making sound installations and large-scale watercolor paintings from photographs. This reinvented relationship to photography allowed her to further evolve concepts which questioned normality and what it means to “belong”.

Maletz is currently living and working in New York City, and has exhibited in the Liverpool Biennial, New Contemporaries UK, Zoo Art Italy, The Royal Watercolor Society in London, and the Moscow Biennale for Young Artists at the MMoMA. Her first New York solo show Together was at the Christopher Henry Gallery in 2013. Recently she has exhibited at Calico Brooklyn, the National Arts Club, the Denny Gallery, Fresh Window, NURTUREart, The Ugly Art Room, The National Academy Museum and the Florence Griswold Museum

 


New Brunswick Art Salon 2018 – Water Color and Mixed Media: “Transfiguration of the Form” 

Artist Personal Website: http://www.allisonmaletz.com/

Email: allison@allisonmaletz.com


Artists Statement

After working as a documentary photographer, I began making large-scale watercolor paintings from both my own photographs and images loaned to me. I painted family, friends, pets, and memories, examining moments that questioned what it means to “belong”. My watercolors are bold and sometimes humorous, each displays moments when the medium overtakes the storyline – bleeding and soiling the subjects, or clothing or ground, while demonstrating hyper-control and detail in other areas. I allow regions of the painting to remain as negative space – a void in the story, expressing pockets of emptiness and isolation. My current body of work, Game, is a series of watercolor paintings that examine interspecies relationships and celebrate hunter and prey / game and play. Life-sized paintings reveal creatures on display, mid-narrative, against a bleak backdrop. The origin of Game began with my interest in the domestication of wild animals and introduction of them into suburban and city homes. Are we tempting fate? Will a “domesticated” species revert back to their natural, wild tendencies? Or will they continue to comply with the haphazard boundaries we have constructed for them? I painted a life-sized diptych of two white horses seemingly growing out of each other, with a decorative unifying border of life-sized horse teeth. I am experimenting with multi-paper “composite” wall installations- in an attempt to exalt both the subject matter and medium. Watercolor has traditionally been used for its portability as a sketch medium. However, these paintings expand beyond the traditional borders, allowing the animals to roam freely, not confining them to one sheet of paper or frame. I paint them floating on white backgrounds, as if they could simply walk out of the frame, onto the wall, and out of the gallery, onto the street. The incorporation of decorative patterns into the paintings has also evolved with each body of work. Originally I used patterns in clothing. Eventually, I started designing ornamental repeats that directly relate to who my subjects are. They exist as a self referential portrait within the portrait, representing a cyclical effort to domesticate something that was once, and might again, be wild.


Exhibitions

2020  

ARTBRIDGE London Terrace NY, NY   

CALICO Calicornicopia Brooklyn, NY   

MILTON J. WEILL ART GALLERY 31th Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY  

2019   

YASHAR GALLERY Animal, Mineral, Vegetable, Animal Brooklyn, NY   

NOOSPHEREARTS Repopulations Brooklyn, NY   

TRESTLE GALLERY Winter Brooklyn, NY   

HEWITT GALLERY Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY   

STEINH ART CONSERVATORY GALLERY, BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN Visions of Nature 2019 Brooklyn, NY  

MILTON J. WEILL ART GALLERY 30th Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY   

2018  

ALFA ART GALLERY Transfiguration of the Form New Brunswick, NJ   

CALICO Calicornicopia Brooklyn, NY  

HEWITT GALLERY Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY   

TRESTLE  GALLERY On Site Brooklyn, NY   

MILTON J. WEILL ART GALLERY 29th Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY  

2017  

CALICO Calicornicopia Brooklyn, NY   

TRESTLE GALLERY Winter Brooklyn, NY   

MILTON J. WEILL ART GALLERY 28th Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY   

2016  

TRESTLE CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY Plus One Brooklyn, NY  

MILTON J. WEILL ART GALLERY 27th Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY  

HEWITT GALLERY Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY  

NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM Creative Mischief NY, NY  

CALICO Game:(Solo Show) Brooklyn, NY  

UGLY ART ROOM Invasive Species Corcallis, OR  

2015  

POPTART Paradise Corcallis, OR   

OFF SITE ART Arte in Construzione L’Aquila, Italy  

MILTON J. WEILL ART GALLERY 26th Faculty Art Exhibition NY, NY  

HEWITT GALLERY Who Nose NY, NY   

2014   

ART BRIDGE IN THE DRAWING ROOM Urban Modulations Brooklyn and NY, NY  

GOWAN US BALL ROOM Concerning Matter Brooklyn, NY  

 STEINHART CONSERVATORY GALLERY, BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN Visions of Nature 2014 Brooklyn, NY FRESH WINDOW Holy Cow Brooklyn, NY  

2013  

FLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM Animal/Vegetable/Mineral: An Artists’ Guide to the World Old Lyme, CT NURTUREart On Hold Brooklyn, NY  

DENNY GALLERY Family Portraits NY, NY NATIONAL ARTS CLUB Body Politic NY, NY  

CHRISTOPHER HENRY GALLERY Together (Solo Show) NY, NY  

CALICO Born Again Brooklyn, NY  

2012  

TRESTLE GALLERY Winter Brooklyn, NY  

HEWITT GALLERY Faculty Exhibition 2012 NY, NY  

CALICO Exhibit A Brooklyn, NY  

YASHAR GALLERY Interdependent Brooklyn, NY  

CAVE GALLERY Hands Are On The Machinery Detroit, MI  

SOIL GALLERY Parliament of Things Seattle, WA  

2011  

CASTLE GALLERY (un)COMFORT(able) Zone New Rochelle, NY  

GOWAN US BALL ROOM Paint Works Brooklyn, NY  

MARYMOUNT MANHATTEN COLLEGE Faculty Exhibition 2011 NY, NY  

UGLY ART ROOM Opening Rejection Brooklyn and Governor’s Island, NY  

2010  

THE CENTRE FOR ART TAPES Broadcasting For Reels: Success Through Failure Halifax, Nova Scotia, CA  

BETA SPACES & UGLY ART ROOM B is for Bear Brooklyn, NY 

CECILIA’S CONVENT SPACE Lost Symbols Brooklyn, NY 

MOSCOW MUSEUM OF MODERN ART Moscow International Biennale for Young Art: Qui Vive? Moscow, RU  

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Divining the Message / Mediating the Divine New York, NY  

2009  

ASSOCIAZIONE ART. ur, MANIFESTAZOONE Zoo Art Cuneo, IT  

WOBURN SQUARE, SLADE RESEARCH CENTRE VANM : Voice and Nothing More London, UK  

A FOUNDATION – ROCHELLE SCHOOL Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2008 London, UK  

2008  

LIVERPOOL BIENNALE Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2008 Liverpool, UK  

WOBURN SQUARE, SLADE RESEARCH CENTRE The Body Project Curator & Artist Lecturer. London, UK  

BANKSIDE GALLERY – ROYAL WATER COLOUR SOCIETY 21st Century Watercolour London, UK  

2006  

CHRISTOPHER HENRY GALLERY Scope Miami, FL  

EXIT ART RISD Biennial NYC 2006 New York, NY  

2005  

CAPSULE GALLERY Circumnavigate New York, NY  

MILK GALLERY Show & Sell New York, NY  

CAPSULE GALLERY In a Conversation New York, NY  

ANGELO RANSENZ FOUNDATION Forbidden Vision New York, NY  

2003  

NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL Untitled New York, NY & West Hollywood, CA  

RED EYE GALLERY Here. Solo Show Providence, RI  

2002  

CATALYST ARTS GALLERY Heaven Pawtucket, RI  

PIAZZA CENCI European Honors Program Rome, IT  

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY GALLERY Four Years of Fingerprints Rome, IT  

2001  

GALERIA MEDIUMA Cardboard Suitcase Full of Ghosts Bratislava, SK