About Alison
Asheville Contemporary and Abstract Artist
Alison Press is a visual artist whose work captures the spirit of the Blue Ridge mountain region through bold abstraction and vibrant color. After painting for more than 20 years while working a corporate career, she retired in 2022 to pursue art full-time. Today, Alison is a painter, collagist, and printmaker creating and showing her original contemporary art from her studio at the Asheville Cotton Mill — a historic building recently reopened after the flood damage of Hurricane Helene in 2024.
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Her original abstract artwork invites collectors to experience color and form in unexpected ways. Alison’s work has been described as vibrant, joyful, and alive — art that transforms both walls and moods.
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Along with her working art studio and gallery space, Alison also participates in monthly curated exhibitions, with new shows opening each First Friday at Resurrection Studios Collective in downtown Asheville. Her work was recently selected and featured in the River Arts Resilience Project curated by ArtPlay in Asheville. Beyond exhibiting, Alison shares her love of art through teaching — leading workshops at both Resurrection Studios Collective and ArtPlay, with future plans for additional art workshops within her studio.
Artist Statement
Color, Movement, and Meaning
Alison creates contemporary abstract art inspired by the landscapes, flowers, and mountain vistas of Western North Carolina. Her process layers paint, paper, and mixed media into bold compositions that feel as alive and ever-changing as nature itself.
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Her latest Fractured Flowers series combines many of the familiar elements seen in her other collections, abstracted imagery, and fluidity of forms. Alison paints with a bright palette, bold marks, and brushstrokes, creating organic forms with emphasis on movement in a balanced composition. She has a series of five (5) collections in her art portfolio: Abstract Imagery, Blossoms, Formation, Fractured Flowers, and Scenery, that, while unique in style, all have a common thread of delivery with regard to her intent and processes.
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“I begin with what I see in nature,” Alison explains, “but I paint what I want to exist, not just what’s there. By pushing past realism into abstraction, I seek to create an emotional impression—a bloom, a landscape, or a moment that exists only in my art. One that is beautiful to view and also strikes a chord of recollection. When I create, I move beyond realism through exaggerated colors and shapes, unexpected marks, and forms that are amorphic or stylized. Images float on and off the canvas, stark negative space may emerge, and mixed media layers add depth and texture. In this way, I aim to bring motion and emotion to an otherwise static 2D format, resulting in paintings that feel playful, lively, and refreshingly new.”
About the Artist
Alison Press is an Asheville, NC-based artist creating bold, contemporary abstract paintings that transform nature’s blooms and landscapes into vibrant works of color and movement. Her art invites collectors and galleries to experience joy, energy, and imagination in every piece.
News & Upcoming Events
A Journey of Resilience
Since childhood, Alison has been an artist and loved creating, but her successful corporate career kept her fully engaged, and she couldn't pursue her passion full-time. Her professional art journey really began at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, where she first discovered her love for painting and abstract style. Over the years, she built her practice while working full time, turning spare rooms into studios and attending art collectives, workshops, and art colonies across the Southeast.
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In 2019, Alison moved to Asheville, just before the global pandemic slowed her plans to establish a permanent studio. Then in 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated the River Arts District (RAD), destroying her shared studio working space and halting her progress once again. But resilience has always been at the heart of her practice. Later that year, she joined Resurrection Studios Collective in the historic Moog building— an artist hub established for those displaced by the hurricane. In this welcoming light-filled space Alison created, exhibited, and sold her art - expanding her collection and her collectors.
In February 2026, Alison will be moving back into the RAD to a larger studio and gallery space, housed in the historic Asheville Cotton Mill. This move and expansion matches her planned extension of her creative business, Alison Press Art. In her 800 sq. ft. studio, Studio F, overlooking the RAD and French Broad River, Alison continues to create new work, teach workshops, and welcome collectors into her world.