Tiepolo’s Dream

“Tiepolo’s Dream,” like much of Alison Weld’s work, is a deliberate study in contrasts. In the top panel, brushy calligraphic red-gold and black gestures perform a passionate dance within a lively celestial blue field. Below, two rectangles display identical sections of upholstery fabric seemingly borrowed from a posh couch. As a young artist, Weld was inspired by and pursued Abstract Expressionism, but it was a problematic goal. In the first place, she was a generation too young. In the second place she was a woman. AbEx was a guy thing. In response, Alison developed her own bold, nature-inspired abstraction and mated those paintings with stretched, but otherwise unmodified, pieces of home goods like decorator fabric, gingham, oilcloth, or fake fur. In defiance of domesticity, however, many of her works during this period are enormous like those of her heroes. “Tiepolo’s Dream,” is a gift to AMUM by the artist on the occasion of her 2010 mid-career retrospective, Alison Weld: Art is My Natural World.