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Former nurse Allison Butcher focuses on painting

By Paul LaPann 3 min read

PARKERSBURG -- While earning a nursing degree at West Virginia University at Parkersburg in 2013, Allison Butcher also studied art at the local university.

After graduation Butcher worked as a full-time nurse for a couple of years before deciding to pursue art as a career.

She moved to California two years ago to focus on her art, and has opened a studio in Topanga in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County. She lives in Culver City.

As a multimedia artist, Butcher, a 2010 graduate of Parkersburg South High School, has participated in art gallery shows and live painting events in California.

Working with international artists, she was part of a mural project at the GardenWalk in Anaheim, Calif., a large outdoor mall, last August.

Back in West Virginia, she painted an L-shaped mural on the parking lot wall of a future business in Charleston. The 8-feet-tall mural is at the site of West Side Wellness Center, which will offer Red Cross classes, yoga and live music, Butcher said. The mural is 54-feet long on one side and 36-feet long on the other side, she said.

"Using acrylic, oil, and spray paint to create images of movement with expressive color, her work is fluid, figurative and surrealistic to create an open pathway for ideas and discussions," Butcher's website states.

She describes her recent artwork as colorful and mystical.

The Charleston mural was designed with the idea of growth, community and revitalization.

"The women of the forest creating life and peacefulness, promoting connection to nature and oneself," Butcher said about her mural.

In the mural, "the nightingale she is holding through that power is taken and changed through the glowing and growing lights to the far side where they multiply and fly away.

"My choice for the nightingale is symbolic to the long history of symbolic associations ranging from creativity, the muse, nature's purity and, in Western spiritual tradition, virtue and goodness," she said.

Butcher said it is an honor to create something meaningful for her home state.

The 14-feet-tall mural in Anaheim is about feeling connected and disconnected in spite of the growth of technology, she said.

"The two sides of the mural are reflecting images, the same yet different like our perception of our lives.

"Large geometric pillars separate the figures and nature that represent humanity, the positive looking up and negative looking downward," Butcher said. This is set over a background of a deep sunset or sunrise.

The owner of the Charleston business wanted the mural to show growth and change, Butcher said. She painted scenes showing a narrative of regeneration through the woods.

It took her two weeks to paint the Charleston mural.

After studying and working as a registered nurse, Butcher worked with Branded Arts as a project manager, artist and executive assistant.

"Nursing taught the value of human experience, with the empathic and connective energies she brings into the artwork," Butcher's website states.

During art classes, WVU-P art professor Beth Cox encouraged Butcher to continue with her artwork.

"She (Cox) taught me a lot," Butcher said.

It has been Butcher's dream to become a full-time artist. She has been inspired by the artists she meets at gallery shows, live painting events and work on the California mural.

In September, Butcher will be an artist in residence with Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Skopelos, Greece, and Rural Artist Contemporary in Lombardy, Italy.

She is the daughter of Dennis and Lynn Butcher of Rockport.

Paul LaPann can be reached at plapann@newsandsentinel.com

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