About the Artist

 

About Me

Alyssa Thorne is a Fine Art Photographer and writer based out of Seattle WA, specializing in still life work. Her photographs juxtapose stunning visual elements and symbolism with heartfelt storytelling. Photographer and artist first, but always a writer at the core, nearly every piece contains a story or personal account with varied and intimate meanings. Alyssa is well known for the narrative qualities of her work, and these stories accompany every piece as an artful and vivid artist statement. Each piece is planned and constructed similar to sculpture, with lush compositions that are always full of secrets to discover. Every photograph is a liminal doorway, an open portal to a different world inside painterly chiaroscuro.

Alyssa is currently working on her second book. An untitled marriage of her still life photography and writing. Her first sold-out publication, Autumn Eternal, contained a body of work aesthetically centered around the fall season and themes of ghosts, nature, and literature. In her spare time she dreams of opening a florist with a gallery inside.

Alyssa is available for select commercial work and commission, January- June. Please contact her HERE

You can read recent interviews with Alyssa about her life and process at Unquiet Things, and Moth & Myth

 

Current Artist Statement

Still life is an act of rebellion, in a world that is holding up mirrors to every portrait, hoping to reflect something back. These pictures do not reflect – they offer a lesson in looking beyond. An invitation to connect and understand, not just to observe.

This work is a clandestine list of instructions on how to see something hidden. Inside the carefully intertwined blooms, glistening fruit, and timeworn objects shrouded in shadow, lies the history of my life. I have woven my stories into the fabric of each photograph, thorn-pricked each finger and bled into the leaves that map the way to the secrets I lay on my table.

Memories and dreams tethered to tiny seeds, fallen petals. The glittering web of my personal mythology, strung from one piece to the next. With my simple tools and familiar objects, I tell everything.

I tell of how Death has touched me and then kept its hand on my shoulder. I tell of my pain – of body, of mind, and of the sharp knife of cold memories. I tell of the halcyon joy of childhood summers, the pain of young loss. The forgetting and finding of oneself. The joy of rain and love and being alive. I tell of all the times the rain disappeared in drought, the love was lost, and living was an unwanted afterthought.

I am speaking, screaming, singing, and crying through the portal of my still life. There are flowers falling from my lips, words written on every petal. Every composition is a sacred and holy place, where I do not just document my book of days, I conduct. I orchestrate small universes, escaping to the blank and welcoming dark of my table. A comfortable void that only I inhabit, while pulling my creations from the ether.

Healing my wounds with hands covered in dirt and flowers, the only salve I know. Melding all these parts into a whole, I am reaching out past the table into the world. Vines creeping out of every frame, hoping to take hold and grow into something lush and comforting to all who see it.

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Social Media

https://www.instagram.com/alyssathorne.co/

https://www.facebook.com/alyssathornefineart

 

CURRICULUM VITAE

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GALLERY SHOWS

  • PCC Sylvania Annual Juried Women’s Art Show, 1st Place Recipient, September 2009
  • “Girls Doing Girl Things” Group Show. Workaround Gallery, Portland OR, November 2009
  • “Light Sensitive Material” Group Show. Launch Pad Gallery, Portland OR. December 2009
  • Polaroid Project Group Show. Floating World Comics, Portland OR. July 2010
  • No Thoughts Magazine Group Show. Panopticon Gallery, Boston Massachusetts. December 2013 - January 2014

PRINT PUBLICATIONS

  • Sloane Magazine. Red/Hot Editorial. Summer 2010
  • Girls On Film Zine. Contributor to Summer 2011 Issue
  • Girls on Film Photo Book, Contributor Vol. 1 - July 2013
  • No Thoughts Magazine, Contributor. Issues 2-8. 2010 – 2013
  • Solo photobook “Autumn Eternal” 2020- 2021
  • Procession Magazine, interview and artist feature, Spring 2022 

ONLINE MEDIA FEATURES

EDUCATION

  • Portland Community College, 2006-2008
  • The School for the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, 2009-2011
  • Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 2011-2013

CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE

  • North View Gallery – Gallery assistant. Portland OR, 2008
  • Sugar Gallery – Co-owner, curator. Portland OR, 2008-2009
  • No Thoughts Magazine - Co-Owner, Editor, Contributor. 2010-2013