Alison Kruse Artist Biography

Kruse is a 26-year-old painter, living and working in Toronto whose work is influenced by mindfulness. She graduated from Queen’s University in 2017 and is a current student at Emily Carr studying Communication Design.

Statement

Lockdown has allowed me to explore themes within my work I would have otherwise overlooked. This fall my work revolved around the theme of passing time and incorporating multiple scenes within one to reflect the synchronicity and repetition that comes with waiting for this period to be over. This second lockdown has felt much more numbing. The task of conceptualizing work felt daunting and laborious. My bandwidth for creating new ideas got much smaller and I found myself making work that felt forced. What felt most natural to me was to simplify. I gravitated towards revisiting times during the pandemic when I felt calm. Because all these scenes were lived within this period, it gave me a sense of achievement that contentment can be reached within the turbulence. This body of work is about regaining balance. Instead of creating work to memorialize how chaotic these times are, I wanted this work to contemplate the space in between. Moments of peace in between boredom and anxiety.