Meet the artist
Alley Kocinski is a third generation artist who has been creating her whole life. She grew up in the Chicago suburbs, pursuing the arts from a young age through a combination of traditional training and self-guided practice. She now resides in Colorado, where the natural beauty provides endless inspiration for her work.
She paints using oils and gouache, and her paintings are often characterized by her textured brushwork. Her work explores the beauty in slowing down and more deeply experiencing our surroundings. Each brushstroke is a pursuit for stillness and wonder in an increasingly fast-paced, digital, and artificial world.
Gallery Representation
What is plein air?
The term “plein air” is a french phrase meaning “in open air”. When an artist creates en plein air, it means they are creating outdoors, on location.
Painting from life in nature provides a lot of unique challenges - quickly changing light and shadows, seeing paint colors differently in the sunshine or shade, and being impacted by the elements - heat, cold, rain, wind, even bugs.
In my opinion, these factors give plein air paintings a special, raw feeling. They’re not as perfect and polished as studio paintings. But they’ve seen the same view you see when you look at it - they were created there, impacted by the real elements there. That physical authenticity adds something beautifully intangible to the artwork.
As an artist, my favorite part of plein air painting is the opportunity to just sit and observe an environment for so long. You get to see things that you would miss if you were just passing through. You get to know that place deeply, see wildlife that only ventures out in the stillness, and form a connection between environment, artist, and artwork that can’t be recreated anywhere else.
I paint both plein air and in a studio setting, and the observations from my plein air work provide deeper insight into my studio work as well.
I do not use generative AI in any part of my creative process. Not in my references, not in my titles or words. I value the soul in human creativity.