About the Artist

About Alison Lockert

I am an artist and educator based in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada. I create realist charcoal portraits and nature-inspired paintings from my cozy (and sometimes chaotic) studio in the home that I share with my husband, Jamin.

Creating art helps me to better understand and appreciate the world around me. My hope is that it will do the same for my collectors. It is my goal to share as much meaning and beauty as I can with others.

Artist Statement

It is easy to lose who you are.

It is easy to wish that you were someone else or somewhere else, or that things were something other than what they are.

Life is full of people we wish we were more like, times and places we’ll never get to, and ideas that trip us up and hold us back.

Life is also full of truths, however; some harsh, some beautiful, most both of those things. Sometimes we seek the truth, sometimes we pretend we cannot see it, and sometimes we get so caught up in our everyday lives that we forget how much the truth matters — how without it, nothing matters. In my artwork, my main focus is to find truth (small, large, obvious, or subtle) embrace it, and represent it with as much beauty and respect as I can.

This usually involves some level of realism and always includes an attempt to elevate something that may otherwise be passed by.

With portraits, it is an attempt to capture an individual’s essence as a human being. Whether they are a historical figure or someone from my own life or a client’s, my aim is to capture who that person truly is or was on a human level. There are so many details within a portrait — a proud nose, a stubborn jaw, a sensitive eye, a determined brow — that can capture the truth about a person. I wish to represent each person I draw as they appear to the people who love them. I aim to cut through the clutter of what others assume about them, their position in society, their profession, and their past and see them simply for the whole person that they have become as a result of their genetics, family, and life experiences. My ultimate goal with the portraits that I create is to find the simple, powerful story within each person I draw, and tell it well.

In my non-portrait paintings this again means a focus on emotion, feeling, and small moments that tell a larger story. I especially focus on small moments in time or things from the natural world that we pass by every day without a thought. A dandelion may be miniscule in comparison to the rest of the world, but it too contains multitudes. It is another small, beautiful story being told in the world right under our noses. My bold colour palettes and use of contrast is meant to shout “this matters,” even when the subject matter may seem insignificant. Through these things, I wish for my art to shift the things that we would normally ignore into focus. I hope to mimic those moments in life when we suddenly remember what matters and what the truth really is - falling in love, taking a big risk, or even losing a loved one.

In the end, I don’t think it will matter if my work is provocative or on trend. Those things fade and change every season. To me, what will matter is that I truly tried to bring a little more truth and beauty to the world through the filter of my eyes, my mind, and my charcoal and paintbrush.

History

It’s funny how when you’re on the right path in life and look to the past, everything lines up and starts to make sense as a story. Patterns form and then vary and become more complicated, weaving together in a way that grows, changes, and stays the same all at once.

When I look back on growing up on a bee farm with my parents and four siblings outside of Grimshaw, Alberta, I see myself doing a lot of weird, artistically focused things. My husband can confirm that this totally lines up with the equally weird things that I’m up to these days. I coloured, crafted, painted, and drew endlessly. Sometimes on paper (appropriate) and sometimes on the carpet or snail shells from a nearby pond (The shells smelled awful, sorry Mom. And sorry to my sister, who had to share said carpet). I dreamed of the secret gardens filled with trees and wildflowers that still live in my mind and come out as paintings today.

I can see myself as a little kid, imagining the ballerina painting on my wall coming to life and being mystified by how someone had made her look so dreamlike and beautiful.

Then, I see myself insisting on designing and repainting my bedroom often because I had thought of another “cool” theme (I’m again realizing how patient my mother is). There I was in my room, painstakingly arranging and rearranging sticks, sand, dried flowers, and anything else I could get my hands on until it looked “perfect.” I rushed to finish my schoolwork so I could use my class time to draw or create patterns, fonts, or colour combinations.

I see myself being nurtured and encouraged artistically by my goofy family, making ridiculous movies with intricate scripts written by my brother, forming a band (called “Maxtreme” - real ones will know), having good music constantly playing, piano lessons, books everywhere, plenty of time outdoors, and having the freedom and tools to pursue whatever creative endeavours I wanted to.

I see my grandfather take up painting and drawing as an already older man and wishing to follow suit, but not thinking I could ever have what it takes to make “real” art. Inspired by him, I finally sat down as a fifteen-year-old and tried to draw some trees and wooden bee boxes seriously but gave up when I wasn’t an expert in perspective and form after 2 hours. Apparently, I didn’t know then that without a great deal of patience, big (and sometimes even small) creative ideas fizzle and die.

It turned out that I wasn’t patient enough to give up for long either, because I started an art class at school only a few months later. Finally, I learned how to see. Our teacher (the incomparable Jody St. Andre) always emphasized that we needed to observe closely and draw what was really there, not what we expected to be there or wished was there. It clicked, and this was when I first saw the pattern and rhythm that continues today — I realized my need to create. I looked back at myself over the years and saw that a story wasn’t beginning for me, just that I finally understood what my story had been about my entire life.

I fell in love with Van Gogh and Monet and dove into building my skills and learning about the artists who came before me. On a school trip to France, I couldn’t tear myself away from Michelangelo’s The Slaves, even though everyone else had long left the room. I researched, I looked closely, I read, drew, painted, and caught a glimpse of what I wanted to do with my life.

Ultimately, I chose to pursue education with a major in Visual Art and a minor in English Literature. I moved to Camrose, Alberta to attend the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus. Here, I met the man who is now my husband and who has seen all the frustrations and triumphs of the last 11 years and has encouraged me to be true to myself and pursue my dreams even when it gets difficult.

While in a sculpting class in university, my favourite art professor (the steel sculptor, Isla Burns) told me that art should always aim to uplift the spirit. Of course, there is value in art that is sad or that makes a point about something serious. Even so, I believe that the goal of art should always ultimately be to make us more — to make us stronger, kinder, wiser, or more peaceful — even if it comes from a place of pain or sorrow at times.

Creating art makes me feel all of these things and more. After finishing the art courses that came along with my degree, I did not draw or paint much. I was busy teaching and quite honestly just couldn’t live up to the expectations that I set for myself, so I just stopped. I made a couple of paintings for people I love and they are some of my favourites, but I also have sketchbooks full of hesitant lines and the odd smudge here and there that I could never bring myself to finish or throw away. Yet again, I didn’t quite have the strength or patience to see my ideas all the way through. Whenever I did draw something though, I felt whole. When I taught art classes, I felt like I might really have something to offer but ached to be creating my own work.

Throughout that time, I see myself finding and losing my way thousands of times. As a teacher, I learned a lot about people, patience, and myself but my story somehow felt cut short – or like I was no longer following the thread that made sense to me. I am still passionate about education, learning and sharing whatever gifts I might have with others, but I would also like see what I’m capable of.

I ended up leaving teaching full time and now divide my time between substitute teaching and creating art. Being able to devote so much time towards creating work that is meaningful to me – and hopefully to you as well – has me staggered by my luck.

Sometime in the last couple of years, I decided to set smaller goals for myself, but to follow through on all of them. Sometimes the goals need to be adjusted or reworked, but they’ve led to a steady upward climb. I’ve been building a body of work and skill set that I am proud of, thanks to consistent work, reading on art theory, Charles Bargue’s drawing course, and workshops by several artists that I admire. Art brings so much meaning and beauty into my life, and I want to share as much of that as I can.

And so, I paint. I keep trying to follow that quiet, still voice within me that tells me what matters and what I want to share with the world. Creating and being surrounded by art heals, grounds, and makes me feel more human.

Alison Lockert