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Abstract Reasoning: Artwork by Alyson Schultz
April 24 - October 24, 2025
On display at the Second Floor Connector Gallery and Stanley Building Lobby 

Art and science both strive to understand the world around us, albeit through different approaches. While artists often explore subjective interpretation and emotional expression, scientists typically employ empirical observation and systematic investigation. Abstract reasoning is an integral component of the creative process and artistic expression. It provides the cognitive flexibility required to move beyond the obvious and the concrete, allowing for the exploration and expression of deeper, multifaceted ideas — recognizing patterns, making connections, and trying to understand complex relationships. It enables us to make leaps in understanding that aren't based solely on what we see.

 
With a focus on form, color and line, Alyson Schultz's body of work utilizes an expressive visual vocabulary. An attention to the physical immediacy of paint combines with strong, gestural expressiveness to create fragments of an urban reality. Their genesis springboards from site specific imagery, and interprets it in a new context, transforming the source into an artwork that conveys something the raw data may not convey. Each painting undergoes a history of its own, as layers are added, scraped, overpainted, built and rebuilt — the paintings evolve from depiction to a more personal, evocative terrain. 

“The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It's our attempt as humans to build an understanding of the universe, the world around us.”
--Dr. Mae Jemison

Image caption: Ladder, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.