By Ryan Michaels
The Birmingham Times
The natural world weaves its way into the most personal works of Allison Leah Thompson.
Though she’s known for her charcoal-on-plywood portraits of greats like former South African President Nelson Mandela, who fought to end racial segregation in his country, or experimental music composer John Cage, Thompson said nature “makes up” herself and finds its way into her most vulnerable work.
“I get excited by [being] outside and out in the world, so I spend a lot of time outside and a lot of time exploring different components in nature, like the sea, or the mountains, or the desert…I’ll go anywhere. It doesn’t really matter,” Thompson said.
In her piece titled “Cocoon,” Thompson obscures her own face, rendered in charcoal over craggy compressed plywood, with a green, flowering cloak.
Thompson, 28, was raised in Huntsville by two art-inclined parents, both of whom met at Auburn University studying graphic design. Though her parents both ended up in jobs unrelated to art, Thompson said she picked up her artistic interest from them.
Thompson also attended Auburn and earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish, biology and public health and is currently pursuing a master’s in public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
As an artist, Thompson didn’t “start out with the intention of being a professional,” but she has done her creative work because it’s something she “needed to do.” The understanding between artist and viewer is powerful, Thompson said.
“What’s so powerful about visual art to me is that it’s a bridge between, no matter how different we are, you find connection, you find connection to that person, and I think that’s fantastic,” Thompson said.
