Allison Gildersleeve

Allison Gildersleeve reimagines landscape painting through distorted perspective and densely worked surfaces that destabilise familiar environments. Returning repeatedly to motifs drawn from wooded terrains, domestic interiors and roadside views, she constructs paintings in which natural spaces appear compressed and constantly shifting. Her compositions are built through varying styles of brushwork, ranging from broad palette-knife gestures to finer linear marks that heighten the physical density of the painted surface. References to eighteenth-century botanical wallpaper and the visual language of street graffiti intersect with organic forms throughout her work, allowing ornament and landscape to merge into one another. Through expressive colour and restless patterning, Gildersleeve transforms the natural world into exuberant, overgrown environments that fluctuate between beauty and disorientation.

Gildersleeve was born in Connecticut in 1970. She received a BA from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, in 1992, followed by an MFA from Bard College, New York, in 2004. She was the recipient of the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship (1999); the Elaine de Kooning Memorial Fellowship at Bard College (2004); the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2008); and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program Award (2018–19). Gildersleeve has undertaken residencies at the Millay Colony, New York (2001); Yaddo, New York (2002); the Liquitex International Residency, New Jersey (2018); and the Norman Bird Sanctuary Artist Residency, Rhode Island (2018). Her work has been exhibited extensively across the United States and internationally, with solo exhibitions at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, Connecticut; Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York; Auxiliary Projects, New York; Robischon Gallery, Denver; Cynthia-Reeves, New Hampshire; Valley House Gallery, Dallas; The George Gallery, Charleston; Olle Nymans Ateljéer, Stockholm; and Galleri Andersson/Sandström, Stockholm. Selected group exhibitions include presentations at PS122, New York; Sharon Arts Center, New Hampshire; CRG Gallery, New York; the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, New York; Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg; and Gana Art Space, Seoul. Gildersleeve currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.