* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Alison Jardine grew up in Yorkshire, England, in a family of artists. She studied art part-time during high school and then proceded to college, receiving a BA in Politics, Philosophy and History from the University of London.
In 2003, after moving to Texas with her family, Jardine returned to her art practice. Her work explores the concept of wilderness, in both a physical and metaphorical sense. She wishes to emphasize the importance of retaining wilderness, in our psyche as well as in our urban environments.
Wilderness and freedom is essential to living a fulfilling life, according to Jardine. Her own ongoing relationship with nature forms a core part of her process. In preparation for her paintings, she takes photographs and draws sketches, with which to create digitally distorted and filtered reference images.
Jardine uses paint because of its visceral connection to the wilderness of artists throughout the ages, back to the earliest cave paintings and earth pigments smeared on skin. She views her work as visually poetic and symbolic, loaded with many ideas of the human experience of consciousness.
Her work has been exhibited wordwide. In 2009 she won the Grand Prize in the Art of Elan competition in 2009, and became a full-time practicing artist. A regular contributor to Art Conspiracy and Vice President of the Plano Arts Association, Jardine also plays an active role in her local art community.