Artist Statement

Artist Statement

As a latch-key kid, growing up in the Silicon Valley in the 1970s and 80s, with no personal sense of cultural heritage, my identity was formed from a saturation of imagery from the technology and media that pervaded my life. As my surrogate parent, television, music, and movies shaped aspects of my personality indelibly.

My artistic process generates a prop closet of my own pastiched identity. Inspired by movies, tv shows, and music that moved me in some way I incorporate my own fears of mortality and vulnerability into installations and sculptures. Through the use of craft materials like cardboard, felt, and fabric, I inject a sense of humor into subjects that teeter the line between absurd and wretched.

Biography

Alanna Risse is an artist, curator, and web developer. Risse holds a BFA in Painting/Drawing from California College of the Arts and an MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art. She owns and operates Verge PDX, a curatorial project that manages regularly rotating art exhibitions in small businesses. Risse lives in Portland Oregon with her daughter, husband, dog, hamster and 5 fish.