Alison Skinher: FIGURE PAINTING & CREATING VISUAL ART

Interviewed by Triniti Rhum

Alison Skinher (She/They) is a biracial nonbinary painter who has been in the creative scene in Austin for quite some time now. In this interview, we are going to dive into Alison's mind as they convey their reasoning behind their artwork and the hardships they have faced throughout their artistic career.

Where did your interests in art and visual studies begin? How did it get you to where you are now? 

I always knew I wanted to do art when I was younger, I always knew I was pretty talented at art, but it was something that I never really thought of as a career, mainly because of my parents. I really got into art when my mom passed away in seventh grade and I got placed into an art class that I didn't even sign up for, I believe it was for design intervention, but I got placed into art and was like it's not my thing but a few weeks into the class my mom died and that’s when art really took over my life. I had no idea what I was doing in life, I had no confidence. The only time I could find confidence was when I was painting. Whenever I went to Austin Community College, I was going to go to school for architecture and then I started working with kids and realized I no longer wanted to pursue that career.

When I was working with kids I then thought I could be an art teacher, and from then I really kind of saw art as a way to help myself and others, so whenever I took a figure painting class at ACC that changed my whole art direction again because I would look at people and see them and see how beautiful they are despite their imperfections. Then I realized that I don't even like myself, I just really didn't like the way I looked. I don't feel confident, I just feel like I'm outside of my body, so I started to paint myself. I love painting people and love to see the lumps and bumps and all that stuff. When I started painting myself that’s when I really connected with myself and so art has been a really introspective journey for me and now that I have gotten to the point where I’ve gained so much confidence because I paint myself I finally see myself as beautiful like I can use that to reach out to other people as well. 

What are some of the most special aspects of expressive art? 

That’s a really good question, I like to think of myself as an abstract realist. I really like realism but I try not to stick to realism too much because I'm not trying to be a printer. There's something about it for me since it's so introspective. It's really nice to not have to hold those ideas and things inside of me, the things I really want to say but can't really put into words I just get to put it on a canvas. A lot of the time I don't even realize what I’m doing I just get an idea and I'm like let's do this thing. Art has really taught me to be patient with myself and to also use that patience to break boundaries.

How do you find inspiration for your pieces? 

Instagram is a really great place and I follow tons of female figure artists of color and that has really helped me. Seeing other people who are doing similar things as me has really helped me because there's not a lot of people who do what I do. You see a lot of flowers, landscapes, and even clothed figure painters at times, so seeing people who do more of what I do helps me.

What do you define as art? 

Anything that doesn't really look exactly like a photo, to be honest. Cause that's just a photograph even when it's super hyperrealistic, I still want more from it. Art is anything that has a greater purpose than just you, it could still be you but I think it's also to reach somebody who also feels like you too, to reach somebody outward. Also if you're exposing something that is a little bit controversial, that is art.

Tell us about the process of a piece going from an idea in your head to a tangible item?

My process is a little bit different now, it's not as planned out as I wish it was. I would just take nudes and then crop them into twelve by twelve and put them on a wall, and then I would just start painting. A lot of the time I would take a colored pencil and outline the drawing and then smash the color on there because I don't like looking at a screen too much. I work from a photo but I really try not to look at it too much just because I like the freedom of figuring things out, kind of like a puzzle. I'm always trying to break the boundaries for what I think is beautiful too.

How do you explore other mediums and other art styles? 

Once I got into oil painting that really changed my life because it's so fluid and you can really blend everything together and it won’t dry. You definitely have to be a lot more patient with it because any little spot that you put can ruin the whole thing but oil painting is definitely my jam just because of how flowy it is.

Have you faced any challenges in your creative career, tell us about it. 

Mainly just wanting to quit. Recently, when COVID-19 hit, I think that made me go into a whole spiral. I had an identity crisis and I had a skin tone crisis when the Black Lives Matter news came out. I knew about police brutality but I didn't know the depth of police brutality. I knew about gerrymandering and what they do, but seeing people getting physically shot on the street just because they’re black blew my mind. Having to connect that to me because that's my reality too, I'm brown, people only see you as your skin tone. That period of time blew my mind and I was having to look back on my artwork and see the brown bodies I was depicting and I didn’t want to treat people like they were objects. I was struggling for a period of time figuring out that I was non-binary while watching documentaries of the government and becoming vegan. It really just tore me down and whenever I'm unhappy with my life is when I experience the most artist blocks.

What are your future plans with your art? Where do you hope to be in ten years? 

I know eventually I would like to do a little more environmental activism with my figure art and use a bigger canvas with nature in it. I really hope I can get to the point where I can incorporate nature and humans because we are the same. So I want there to be a sense of self-empowerment but also for people to be more connected with nature as well. I hope that people can see that this concrete environment that we are looking at is not exactly what we should be doing. But I hope in ten years I can steer away from the sexy part of art and to do more activism.

Follow Alison Skinher on Instagram at @alisonskinher