Ailsa Coulson

Ailsa Coulson (pronouced ale-sah, she/they) is Tāmaki Maukaurau raised, working in oil painting and ink/gouache illustration to depict abstracted narrative.

At university, focused on connecting the mental with the physical using automatic/intuitive drawing, they have developed this mode into narrative, like the difference between a word and a sentence formed in the mind. Images begin with memories of life, place, and media, (particularly the city that raised and houses them - Tāmaki Makaurau); then a story begins, with each piece a tale is woven as the picture takes shape. Ailsa searches for the mingling between consciousness and physicality, digital and real, city and nature, global and local, modern and ancient, fiction and reality, and the ecosystems we live within that keep the balance between these things.