Alison Ouellette-Kirby:
Home From Work to Find Your Spaniel Turned Into A Wolf
Opening Reception: July 31 6-10pm

Alison Ouellette-Kirby’s upcoming show Home From Work To Find Your Spaniel Turned Into A Wolf takes a critical look at the underlying concepts and definition of “home”. Her sculptures focus on the iconic home from the board game Monopoly™, a form she is obsessed with and a game she hated as a child. A game whose premise she describes as presenting “robber-baron style capitalism as something light and fun”. A theme that seems all too familiar in the current political and economic climate and its relationship to one’s “home”.

Alongside political motives are Alison’s personal definitions of “home” and how these ideas shift with age and geography. Alison’s work investigates how this ever-changing definition has a direct impact on the physical and psychological landscape of the country. Alison’s Canadian background creates a thinly veiled difference between her and her surrounding community; a foreigner who is not quite foreign enough.
Alison’s work is masterly crafted, engaging a variety of mediums and mechanisms. Her work includes larger metal sculptures that clang and crash as the viewer interacts with them as well as delicate jewelry sized pieces that seem fragile to the touch. Alison’s craftsmanship and attention to detail result in engaging objects that demand our focus and attention.

Alison Ouellette-Kirby received her BFA from the University of Windsor in 1993 and her MFA from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1996. Following graduate school Alison held a position at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally at The National Ornamental Metal Museum, The Walker Gallery at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, The Washington University Medical School of Medicine, The Art Gallery of Windsor and String Gallery in Toronto. She currently teaches Sculpture, Jewelry and Photography at St. Charles Community College.