Alison Foshee

Thumbtacks and pushpins explode into extravagant floral arrangements. Staples trace the jagged contour of a leaf. Office labels spin out in hot, firecracker explosions.
Over the past 15 years, I have been exploring the artistic potential of everyday "stuff". I enjoy working these raw materials with the geeky intensity of a Rubik's cube puzzle master and relish the challenge of finding new meanings in objects that have become banal. In the process, I try to reveal something about the material's original function that will inform its new shape and content.
In search of my muse, I enjoy scouring our urban city centers, like an orchid thief in the Amazon, for weird and marvelous products like the next generation of folder dividers or the latest technology in bendable pencils. I find these readymade oddities ever fascinating because of their dual nature as consumable goods. They are simultaneously indispensable and without value; perhaps, a not-so-subtle metaphor for culture's subjective/plastic definition of what is precious.
While materials have always been a defining element of my work, it is also important to me, the manner in which they are manipulated. This involves using the material as it...

San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
MFA, printmaking emphasis, 1995

Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
BA, fine art major, 1991