I have been drawing with a typewriter for over 34 years. During that time, I have developed marks that are my visual language: a drawing language ‘written’ by type, and a written language drawn as mark and form.
I began drawing out of the need to communicate, to find my own language; I was looking for a way to record my thoughts and ideas. I began writing with a typewriter, a tool that could keep up with my thoughts. However, I employed no rules of the written language: no capitalization, no punctuation, no paragraphs. The writing slowly transformed-the words left the page and what remained has become my language: drawing.
Allyson Strafella received her BFA from The Museum School of Fine Arts and Tufts University in 1993. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Strafella’s work is in both private and public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, NYC; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; The Hammer Museum, CA; The Morgan Library & Museum, NY; Yale Art Museum, CT; The Fogg Art Museum, MA; The Walker Center, MN amongst several others. She is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1999, 2025), The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2002), Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation (2017), Sustainable Arts Foundation (2017), Artists Resource Trust (2017), New York Foundation for the Arts (2001, 2011), The Martha Boschen Porter Fund (2015). She lives and works in Hudson, New York.