Alison Chandler is a Dundonian artist, now based in Johnshaven in Aberdeenshire, and co-founder of the Way Through Project. Alison’s passion and involvement in art spans a lifetime, but a life-threatening diagnosis and a difficult path towards recovery, punctuated by complications, have spun her art in a new direction over the past few years. 

The works weave a story of strength and pain, resilience and recovery; meetings and growth. Through dazzling colour and fantastic images, Alison’s work exposes scars and wounds, accepting them as part of the weft of life – holding the joyful belief that life can be beautiful. 

Dandelion (2018), is a cobalt blue impression of a meeting, hazy like a memory, shining with golden suns, inspired by memories of the Camino de Santiago, which she took in 2015 and 2018. Guapa (2018) is Spanish for ‘pretty girl;’ the defiant title beside the picture of a body that has visibly gone through pain, that has changed through invasive surgery, but that is still able to hold colourful flowers, seems to provoke and ask with gentle irony, What is beauty about? Is this body beautiful? What is a beautiful body? 

The Way Through Project is the name of Alison’s practice, a way to bring together artists and audiences that share experiences of life-threatening illnesses. Healing is a shared journey, a walk you embark on with others, shaped by the meetings you make on the way. Dazzling, inspiring, resilient; Alison’s work tells us life is beautiful, with its cracks and patches, filled up with gold. 

You can find out more about The Way Through Project, browse and purchase Alison’s art on their website.