Allison S. Whitley

 Allison Whitley began the formal study of art in her junior year of high school.  In her first year, she won several state honors for her paintings and did so again in her senior year, including being awarded a scholarship for the most original self-portrait among Texas high school artists.  More scholarships and awards for her art came her way as she applied to several institutes for advanced training in art.  She was accepted at several nationally recognized art schools and chose to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied painting and design. 

Allison Whitley started selling her paintings professionally while attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  She currently resides in Houston and is beginning to show her work in concert with other well-known and internationally established artists in Houston. 

“When I start a new piece, I begin with an image in mind that evokes emotions” as Ms. Whitley describes the creative process.  “But sometimes I begin with no image at all.  I put paint on canvas and something starts to happen that is engrossing and fascinating.  I get into a flow of paint and movement, and I work very quickly, discovering as I go the image that comes to life for me on the canvas.  I become so immersed in what I’m doing that I can lose track of time and sense of space.  I trust my feelings and my visions.  Some times there is a story going on in my painting, sometimes there are moments of life such as a conversation with strangers in the park, and sometimes my paintings are a conversation with the undiscovered soul.”

As a fresh, Houston artist, Ms. Whitley is starting to make an impact on her own with her startlingly beautiful and emotionally expressive use of color and theme.  Ms. Whitley rejects the notion of art as cartoon or decoration or art as concept.  In her use of color, subtle nuance of form and content, Ms. Whitley’s paintings convey emergent and often inchoate but powerful emotional experiences difficult to render in any medium other than the power of oil on canvas.  As a result, her vision of the human condition is fresh and provocative.   Her absorbing images are beautiful and moving, often leaving her audience with the feeling that more is alive in her flowing, vibrant images than can be absorbed by only one viewing of her canvas.