Allyson Mellberg

Born in 1977 in Racine, Wisconsin, USA. Lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Allyson Mellberg draws distorted yet playful characters who proudly display their anomalies in his drawings, paintings, serigraphs and etchings. Furry creatures sometimes crown the heads of its female figures and wrap their tails around mustached androgynous beings. In Allyson's drawings, nature regains possession of Man, in a “post-Louise Bourgeois / Kiki Smith pre-futurist neo-biological” style. Her work is particularly influenced by the daily misuse of chemicals in our society: she claims to be an eco-responsible artist who uses only non-toxic and often handcrafted materials, such as walnut stain, tempera with l 'egg, and paper. She also claims to be influenced by 1930s science fiction and in particular the works of Stanley Weinbaum. Allyson Mellberg is a graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Allyson is currently an Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband and collaborator Jeremy Taylor.