ALISON HALL | for the white bird

Artist’s Talk
Transcribed and edited from a recorded event.
Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, October 11, 2019

Often, from a distance, the paintings appear to be one solid color, just a black or blue painting. As the viewer approaches the paintings, the graphite catches the light and the paintings’ intricate and subtle fields of pattern become illuminated.
     —Alison Hall, from her “Artist’s Statement”

I grew up in Martinsville, Virginia, from an uneducated family that worked in the factories and tobacco fields there. I’m interested in the idea of repetitive labor and doing things over and over again and where that can take the mind. My works don’t necessarily have a prescribed ending. I don’t begin thinking about what’s going to happen or how it will be. The work drives itself and moves itself forward.

I’ve really been obsessed lately—in my studio—with architecture, and the work Pavimento di Padua, Capella Scrovegni comes out of a major piece of architecture in Padua, Italy, from this very special chapel that I visit. All of the patterns in my paintings come from that space. But I have been so enamored with the idea of “architecture without architects.” I love thinking about that idea as I’m in Virginia, my home place, when I see a little lean-to shed or a little form that feels like something out of one of these Italian paintings that I admire. I mention “architecture without architects” because the title of this show, for the white bird, kind of comes about in that same way, much like the work.

Threshold (for glimpses of the white bird), 2019 [detail 1] Alison Hall Threshold (for glimpses of the white bird), 2019 [detail 2 magnifed] Oil, graphite, and plaster on panel 40 x 32.5 in.

I was in Germany a couple of years ago because I work with a gallery there, and I had titled my exhibition there Long Distance Call months in advance of arriving. During that time, my grandmother got very, very sick. Two days before my show opened, I had a long-distance call with her, which happened to be our last, and one of the longest calls we’d ever had—it was this really beautiful conversation.

Two days later, as my show opened on my mother’s birthday, my grandmother passed away unexpectedly. I’d gone to the grocery store that day to pick up some food to have for the week, and on my walk back, pushing my bike loaded with groceries on the handlebars—I bought so much and biked because it’s Germany and everyone bikes—and from a distance I saw this white bird fly into a bush.

I’m a bird watcher and I’m constantly looking at birds. I can recognize them by their song or how they sit. This bird was white—it was all white—and to see a white bird in the wild is very rare.

I walked my bike up, looked into the bush, and there was the white bird, and it was talking to me, it was speaking, and I don’t know what it was saying. I became so enamored with it. I was so close to this bird, but granted, it was between me and my bicycle. So I put the kickstand down and set the groceries on the ground, trying to be really quiet because if you know anything about birds, any movement and they’re gone. I moved even closer and had a long conversation with it. I put my hand out—reaching for it—and it almost pretended like it was going to step onto my hand, and though it didn’t, it still talked the whole time.

The visit of the white bird happened that day my grandmother died, and I found this to be outrageously beautiful and very much like my work—we can’t know anything that’s going to happen, but we have these special moments that reach us and they’re indescribable. And, of course, the first person I wanted to tell about this experience was my best friend from childhood, the poet Annie Woodford, in Martinsville, Virginia. She’s what I always call my “poet eternal.” She’s the one writing the story of my life—of our lives—in this very small town where we grew up.

My grandmother was a really special woman. She died at eighty-eight. She had an amazing head of white hair that was so beautiful—it was electric. One of the things she was most proud of is that she made more money than my grandfather by the end of her career in the factory. She was so proud that she made more than a man. I love that spirit.  

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   Contributor’s notes

   Artist’s Statement & Table of Contents

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