Alyssa Krause
Alyssa Krause’s paintings center around generating a sense of familiarity in the unfamiliar to question the parameters of perception. Through a series of rules decided before painting, Krause creates a border between herself and the paintings. She received her BFA in Painting & Drawing at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 2019. She has exhibited locally in Milwaukee and the Midwest, most recently at the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, Wisconsin. Krause is inspired by her connection to both the modern and natural world and how perception is always altered and in a state of unknowing. She is represented by Tappan Collective LA and LeBennett.
Collect Bean: How do you think your work has evolved?
Alyssa Krause: My work is ever-changing, and that is one of the things that keeps me motivated. Looking back at my work from undergrad to a couple of years ago and now my current work, I see a lot of growth in materiality, color stories, and how I build my framework for ideas. I’m excited to see how it continues to evolve. The most significant shift is in how they are painted; I think I have fine-tuned my painting language, and now the biggest challenge I’m looking forward to is translating that language into new formats and ideas. I’ve been playing around more with floral imagery versus plant life, which has given me more interesting landings to explore.
Collect Bean: Where are you currently finding inspiration?
Alyssa Krause: I have been looking more at flowers than plant life. This has shown me new avenues regarding shape and composition building and has encouraged more color directions while sketching. It is definitely a new concept I’ve been playing with, and I’ve been enjoying figuring out a new “what works/what doesn’t work” system for my structured process.
Collect Bean: How does your painting process look like from start to finish?
Alyssa Krause: My process starts by sourcing images online; I find it interesting to look for images that were never intended to be looked at under a close lens and transform them into something else. I like to start with a color sketch using Sharpies to understand what colors I want to pull out of the image I’m working with/what I want to exaggerate, and then draw the image onto the canvas. Before transferring the image to canvas, I always start my paintings with a base acrylic layer; that tends to be a more intuitive process, and I like to play around with color and texture here. Once the image has been drawn over this layer, I predetermine what will happen where and start painting. As I’m working, the painting tends to lead me where it needs to go, and in this, I have also found more of an intuitive flow in image building.
Collect Bean: What role does color play in your practice?
Alyssa Krause: I think color definitely has had varying roles in my work throughout the years, and I’ve been more open to it lately and how it can play a role in my paintings. A recurring theme I’ve tied to my work has been dreams/haziness/halfway state, and I feel that color has a place in creating that feeling or ‘place.’ For me, taking color too literally has made it harder to support this idea, and I’m playing around with looking at colors in an image and finding their hazy/dream state of being. I don’t know exactly how to describe it in words as I’m trying to figure it out myself with each painting, but I like the challenge of trying to evoke a dream-like state through colors and an image that isn’t necessarily a familiar space for us.
Collect Bean: If you had to describe your work in only three words, what would they be?
Alyssa Krause: Structured, dreamscape, perspective.
