Allise Blackman

Key West, Florida

Allise Blackman primarily uses black ink pen on cotton paper, at times incorporating paint accents, to create sophisticated, detailed line drawings.

Allise Blackman is an abstract artist who creates intricate drawings involving organic black, saturated shapes among highly detailed and intricate line work to create layers of texture and depth. She uses mainly two materials: ink and textured cotton paper. Some of her pieces include other elements such as paint, to add subtle texture or highlight, but the base of her work is black and white. The almost hallucinatory nature of her pieces draws the viewer in to discover tiny abstract worlds within worlds.

Allise was born in the desert of Arizona, raised on the coast of North Carolina, spent her teenage years in the hills and mountains of Virginia, and attended college in the city: so needless to say, the variety of landscapes and the unique residence in each provided much influence to her work and life in general. Allise’s creative journey was largely ignited by her experience in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - where she studied and received a BS in Interior Design. At an early age, Allise was obsessed with architectural drawings and loved the idea of a collection of spaces interlocking, to form a complete functioning structure. This eventually led to her interest in designing interiors. The combination of a geometric puzzle paired with the beauty of textures, colors, careful space planning, and (in her case) heavy incorporation of the natural world - to create a livable “mood”, is another element of her background that carries into her recent works and personal aesthetic.

In 2012, Allise moved from Philadelphia to the tiny, vibrant island of Key West, where she currently resides with her husband and son. After over a decade of developing and finding comfort in her craft, she now creates and showcases her work in the historic Key West Armory building - alongside her husband Willie Alsedek (writer and digital media artist) as well as a collective of other talented local artists.

"Art is the space between reality and dreams. That place feels different for all artists, but I personally keep returning to this place for the hum of intensity and ultimate peace I always find there. For the answers to the questions I cannot find in either realm, for the journey through the strange that makes sense, for the pain that turns into wisdom. Art is all the worlds I wish to travel that only exist in dreams, and all the words I need to say that cannot merely be spoken."