Alison Leigh Menke is an expressive impressionist who loves painting directly from life and creating work in plein air. Her approach emphasizes the importance of impressing a true sense of light and place, while expressing the rich qualities of oil paint, palette knife and brushwork.
The Old Homestead, oil on aluminum, 18 x 24"
Menke’s current focus is exploring a balance between a loose and controlled sense of mark-making in her plein air paintings, and translating that energy into larger works. Each stroke has an energy behind it—be it a delicate twist of the wrist or a large mark that is pulled across the panel using core abdominal strength. Menke is a very physical painter and likes to think of her pieces as “dancing paintings.” She works on brushed anodized aluminum, a ridged surface sandwiched with a polyethylene core. This inorganic material is strong and enduring. Paint flows with little resistance and this substrate helps protect her work from the humidity and salt of a tropical island.
Valley Rhapsody, oil on aluminum, 12 x 16". Available through HorseSpirit Arts Gallery
In addition to commissioned work permanently on display at the National Harbor in Maryland., she shows in several galleries, predominantly HorseSpirit Arts Gallery in Savage, Maryland.
Indelibly Green, oil on aluminum, 12 x 16"
Menke will also participate in Colorado’s Telluride Plein Air Festival in late June. In September, she is partaking in the Sonoma Plein Air Festival in California and Bath County Plein Air Festival in Virginia. —
Want to See More?
(443) 831-5815 | www.alisonmenke.com
Instagram: @Alison_Leigh_Menke
Represented by HorseSpirit Arts Gallery
8600 Foundry Street, Ste. 2063
Savage, MD 20763
(301) 490-2001 | www.horsespiritartsgallery.com
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