Alison Street
Sensorial Realities
A Collective Exhibition

Exhibition Dates: March 21, 2009 - April 10, 2009
Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat 11-6

530 West 25th Street, Chelsea New York
Tel 212-226-4151 / Fax 212-966-4380

Living in Africa is a joy and a privilege; one cannot help but pick up pen, pencil and brush, endeavouring to capture the essence of this vast continent.  Conservation of the wildlife is of paramount importance; portraying their stature and beauty in our breathtaking environment is mandatory. Donating a percentage of profits from the sale of my works make me feel that I am contributing to their conservation in some small way.

Zambia is a beautiful country and extremely wealthy in wildlife; we do have problems with poaching therefore the more we can help by bringing attention to their plight the better we are able to stamp out poaching.

We are very lucky to have a small cabin on the banks of the Zambezi River bordering the Lower Zambezi National Park and it is from here that I gather most of the material and inspiration for my paintings and hopefully impart the vibrancy, colors, rhythm and atmosphere that surround this abundant and very important part of our heritage.

I do love to render backgrounds in vibrant and rhythmic colors but feel that the wildlife deserve to be portrayed as they are.

I was born in Yorkshire, England but have lived most of my life in Africa, moving to Zimbabwe as a child and then on to Zambia where I married and settled.  We own a Coffee Estate but spend most of our free time in the Lower Zambezi National Park with excursions into the South Luangwa National Park and the Kafue National Park.

I am a self taught artist and over the years have had several successful exhibitions, joint and solo here in Zambia.  Recently one of my paintings was selected and hung in the Mall Galleries, London for the David Shepherd Foundation ‘Wildlife Artist of the Year 2008’. I am at present exhibiting in the Agora Gallery in New York, NY.

I work on commissions and have paintings in private collections.

I also help to run an Art Group teaching watercolour techniques and encouraging budding artists to exhibit their work.

PRESS RELEASE - Agora Gallery, Chelsea New York - Fine Art Gallery

Journey into the wilds of imagination with self-taught artist, Alison Street as she paints vivid, magical works of the wildlife and environs of her home in Africa. Brilliantly colored birds, grazing zebras, and mighty elephants emerge from sensitively rendered scenes from the bush or stylized abstract backgrounds. When she combines her exceedingly realistic style with swaths of textured color it produces an energetic and illusory quality to her paintings. Working with watercolor and mixed media on paper, Street’s brushwork is daring and direct, able to render impeccably or to set loose upon the paper in luscious creative freedom. Born in the United Kingdom, but relocated to Africa in her childhood, Street’s work explores her world through eyes of innocent wonder. “Living in Africa is inspiring in itself, this is the most diverse continent,” she says. ”The colours and the wildlife are breathtaking.” Street has had numerous exhibitions in Africa, and her work is being collected in Europe and United States. She lives and works in Zambia.

Alison's "Art Mine" page on the Agora website