My artwork investigates visual magic — the moment when material behaves in ways that feel alive, unstable, and slightly beyond control.
I am drawn to organic forms: folds, tendrils, and curving structures found in nature and the body. These qualities appear through fumage, a process-based technique using soot and flame. Working with smoke introduces risk and unpredictability; soot, air, and chance become active collaborators. I’m interested in what this kind of making can teach, how a medium that resists control can be both destructive and creative at once.
My paintings explore embodied presence, vulnerability, and desire without relying on hard narrative. Using fire and smoke, I allow combustion to leave its own marks: stains, veils, and ghostly impressions that hover between figuration and abstraction. What emerges often feels bodily or serpentine, but never fixed. These works are not images of fire, they are records of its passage.
I think of this work through the lens of erotic ecology. Curving forms recur across the surface, echoing patterns found in smoke, landscape, and anatomy. Rather than illustrating identity or emotion, the paintings invite sustained attention — asking viewers to slow down and notice how desire, risk, and aliveness are felt and negotiated within the body.
Read interviews with Ally through The Little Book Project WI, and James May Gallery