Allison Malinsky

Al­li­son Ma­lin­sky only moved from New York to Barcelona two and a half years ago, but her paint­ings have al­ready be­come brighter thanks to the light stream­ing in through the win­dows of her stu­dio on car­rer Enric Grana­dos. A “ragazza so­lare”, as some­one close de­scribes her, light and colour are es­sen­tial el­e­ments in her con­cep­tual paint­ings and three di­men­sional works. While she is look­ing foward to open­ing her first solo ex­hi­bi­tion at the Ga­le­ria Vic­tor Saave­dra in May, Al­li­son showed us around and talked to us about all the as­pects that go into her art work.

1. This bright or­ange Vinçón pot was the first gift my hus­band brought home for me to put my paint­brushes in, they were the only in­dis­pens­able artis­tic tools I brought from NY.

2. I paint with Old Hol­land oils—high pig­ment con­tent with a high cost to match.

3. My ‘color recipe book' con­tains all my notes on colour and mix­tures I've made for each paint­ing. I like it as an ob­ject and record.

4. I work long days alone and while si­lence can be a pre­cious en­vi­ron­ment to make work in, it can also drive a per­son mad over time. I al­ways start my day with WNYC (New York's Na­tional Pub­lic Radio sta­tion) and as the day goes on I lis­ten to sto­ries, con­ver­sa­tions and in­for­ma­tion mostly in the form of stream­able pod­casts. I also lis­ten to music.

5. OK, tech­ni­cally I don't work alone, Goya, our dog, is the best stu­dio mate one could ask for.

6. In­spir­ing art books and lit­er­a­ture, 25 boxes are still in stor­age a.k.a. my par­ent's house. I car­ried the gems here in extra lug­gage. I just fin­ished (Isamu) Noguchi: East and West by Dore Ash­ton and am now read­ing ce­ram­i­cist Ron Nagle's mono­graph.

7. Bel­gian linen is the best paint­ing sup­port I've yet to find, es­pe­cially for my three-di­men­sional paint­ings, among other qual­i­ties it has the most beau­ti­ful weave that re­mains vis­i­ble under the paint.

8. For three-di­men­sional paint­ings I make ma­que­ttes.

9. Dur­ing my two-and-a-half years in Barcelona, I have filled nine sketch­books with sketches, col­lages, con­tin­u­ous ideas, to do lists, in­spi­ra­tion, etc.

10. Cal­en­dar to mark the days until my solo ex­hi­bi­tion in­stal­la­tion. Paint­ing is time con­sum­ing and oil paint can take weeks to dry, being or­ga­nized, and plan­ning ahead and work­ing back­wards is cru­cial. The ex­hi­bi­tion opens on the evening of May 5 at Galería Vic­tor Saave­dra, C/ Enric Grana­dos, 97, Barcelona—see you there!

www.​all​ison​mali​nsky.​com