Alison Bessesdotter
Mediums: Painter · Printmaker · Quilter
Studio: 248A
Alison Bessesdotter grew up along the banks of the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in a family of artists and musicians. Bucks County is a remarkable region that has produced artists, playwrights and musicians the likes of Edward W. Redfield, Pearl Buck, James Michener, Louis Bosa, Frank Lowe and Ryan Lowe.
Bessesdotter has been by turns a beekeeper, an award winning pie maker, an equestrienne, a painter, a printmaker, and a quilter to name some of her complex and unusual pursuits. An aficionado of the doberman, pit bull, rough coat collie and the toy pug, Bessesdotter is rarely seen without a dog by her side.
Bessesdotter is an outsider artist; a self taught painter, printmaker and studio art quilter. As a Pennsylvania native her affinity for quilting comes naturally. She has a deep regard for the traditional form even as she pushes it into new and innovative realms. The marriage between painting, printmaking, design and quilting lends itself to Bessesdotter interpreting herself in a colorful and extraordinarily detailed style.
Bessesdotter’s respect for the traditional art forms with an iconic classic streak leads her to hang her work in galleries, and non-traditional spaces such as burrito shops, hair salons and on iconic american denim jackets. Her modern style like her medium is rich and varied. Alison’s paintings, prints and quilts are currently in private collections.
Bessesdotter’s work time is spent at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem as an ArtsQuest Resident Artist and a colonial log cabin on the bank of the Little Lehigh creek in Lehigh County, PA.
Artist statement
Art for me is a consuming performance, a transmutation of chemicals, minerals, biological materials and myself, metaphorically converting them into curious objects that we display and observe. I am kinetic by nature and spend most days and nights working and creating. My pieces are intuitive experiences, sometimes other-worldly themes and how we are hard wired to have a belief in something—love, a noble cause, science, nature, even the self.
Artist Gallery
