Allyson Levy

Whereas art and life are mere imitations of one another, I can echo that sentiment loudly from my own forest.

After relocating to rural upstate New York 25 years ago, my life has become completely informed and inspired by my interaction with the plant kingdom. I became a commercial landscaper, grow a large amount of my food, and started a botanical garden with my husband. Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens is a level II arboretum, specializing in rare plants from around the world. Our goal is for the nonprofit gardens to be a “living textbook” of the diversity of life that can be grown in the Hudson Valley of N.Y. (Hortusgardens.org).

My art has also followed my life interests as I use plants as a wellspring for inspiration. My current body of work deals with the properties of found organic materials at various times of the year. It also deals with the processes those materials undergo through nature's transitions spurred by decomposition, sunlight, wind, insects, etc. By combining natural materials with wax, I try to capture interaction with nature. The treatment of these organic materials along with various techniques of encaustic painting convey the feeling of particular moments of time and how they reflect human emotions. From sprout to decay, the viewer is visually confronted with the profoundly beautiful, devastating, and inevitable life cycle.

My paintings are my attempt to portray and perhaps find beauty and solace in these brief moments.