Saatchi Art

Rebecca Wilson Chief Curator at Saatchi Art chooses Bessesdotter as promising and emerging artist 2022

Statement

Re-imagined landscapes inspired by the essence of a place, including weather patterns, mountains, forests, streams, farms, gardens, insects and birds.

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Surrey & Bucks County Artist

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Steve Piccione wrote...

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Her marvelous watercolors are a joyous expression of the indelible mark nature continues to forge on her soul. The alert colors and intricate flowing lines generate a complexity that never dissolves under the weight of intertwining and multiplying designs. There is an undisturbed enchantment within that beckons the viewer to linger and dream. You could be gazing into a magical stream or a euphoric sky. Turn the paintings in any direction and they continue to speak.

Her creative process is analogous to jazz improvisers who bravely jump into the unknown without maps or guiding coordinates. Bessesdotter’s bottomless talent and refined instinct navigate as she develops these very organic creations. Deep concentration opens into timelessness while she transforms diverse materials into resplendent artifacts.

...Steven Piccione

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WDIY Interview

Statement

I consider myself a director in the artistic placement of natural features within re-imagined landscapes. Yet, when I begin to create, it is with an intuitive method wherein I become separated from time and space through dissociation. I describe the experience as “when I return there is a completed work in front of me". The arrangement of forms is like a concert in an imaginative space, my mind is a type of laboratory where the organic shapes are spontaneously engendered. Spatial harmony and balance happen naturally while I am inside the work. I draw on my emotional memory to a myriad of natural spaces where I lived and backpacked. The work can include weather patterns, mountains, forests, streams, farms, gardens, insects, birds and colonial structures. The patterns and views come from attentive observations of the earth even from childhood. I can lie in a field observing grasses wave in the wind, see mountains in the distance, watch the birds, sit in the woods touching trees while their leaves drift to the ground and insects create motes in the sunlight. In the finished paintings I hope the viewer gets a sense of freshness and serenity yet is aroused by the pleasurable sensation of tension and movement. 

Blue Rose in the Garden Cotton Art Quilt

Minsi Trail 2023 Acrylic on Canvas

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Detail from Patchwork with Blue Trees Acrylic on Canvas

CV 

Alison Bessesdotter is an artistic autodidact and intuitive artist. Born a Bucks County artist, Alison grew up along the banks of the Delaware River in rural Pennsylvania. As a child she developed a lifelong interest in the meticulous observation of nature which continues to inspire her artwork. She is respectful of tradition but works with an iconoclastic streak experimenting with various mediums. Her works have been described in the press as “improvisational: worlds of magic, euphoria and enchantment.”
Currently, Alison maintains a studio in Reigate where she founded Bell Street Artists in 2021.  Bessesdotter also has over a decade of expert experience in selecting and hanging over a dozen exhibitions annually for other artists and groups.
Until 2019 Bessesdotter was a Resident Artist for 7 years at the Banana Factory, a community arts centre in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Alison served as a Visual Arts Board member of ArtsQuest and was on the Music Committee. Alison was the administrator of a Livestrong grant to bring art classes to people with cancer living in the local community.
Alison managed The Bessesdotter Verksted from 2010-2013. She performed tasks such as curator, membership coordinator, publicity chair and juror for regional art organisations including The Salemme Foundation and The Allentown Art Museum. Prior to this Alison maintained a studio at home and was a member of the Spirit Square printmaking cooperative studying lithography with Tamarind Printmakers. Bessesdotter holds a Degree in Technology and Computer Science. 

Bessesdotter has received the ArtPop Billboard Award in 2018, a LiveStrong Grant in 2014-2015, the Pittsburgh Watercolour Painting Prize 2013 and Lehigh Art Alliance Prize 2011 and 2012.

Alison’s artworks are in private and corporate collections.