Alison in brushstrokes, the sneaky behind the scenes of the London art world

Bridport, in the county of Dorset, England, at the dawn of the 1980s. Alison was 18 when she married Andrew to embark on an ordinary life, the only path open to her. “We were just kids from the coast who took the easy way out. And we didn’t think for a moment of an alternative.”considers the protagonist. The disillusionment is total. Household chores, boredom and solitude punctuate her days and the young girl looks for a way to escape from this dreary daily life. His meeting with Patrick, a great London painter, offers him the escape he so desires. She leaves everything behind and leaves with him. It opens the doors to the capital’s artistic scene where she will have to make her way to find her place. Not without difficulty.

Male-dominated sphere

For her first graphic novel, Lizzy Stewart brilliantly paints the portrait of a young girl facing the steep path to emancipation. A path which alternates enchanted parentheses and harsher moments. Nothing disposed this young provincial to wander this world of intellectuals full of himself and fiercely determined to preserve his privileges.

To escape a sad existence, Alison faces a sphere dominated by men and a system based on social legitimacy. Most of them wealthy, the artists condescendingly tolerate her presence without letting her enter their world. Alison and Patrick’s relationship is tainted by this reality. Like a pygmalion, the illustrious painter wishes to shape it in his image, curbing the creativity of the budding artist. Alison is locked in a golden cage from which she will also have to free herself.

In the form of a life diary, where the exploration behind the scenes of the London art scene of the 1980s is intertwined, Alison with brushstrokes keeps the reader in suspense from the first page to the last. If art offers the young girl a saving escape, recognized artists steeped in diktats and prejudices, impose a certain book to read, a certain way of drawing, a certain way of behaving in society.

Alison understands with pain that this privileged world made up of a few chosen ones who “have the freedom to free themselves”confines her to another straightjacket. How will this young provincial extricate herself from the traps of fascination and control? She knows what she owes to Patrick and locks herself in total deference before standing on her own two feet. Between speech bubbles and pages of text, the reader follows the heroine’s metamorphosis like a plot.

Lizzy Stewart’s watercolor line, supported by a delicate black and white, elegantly relays the atmospheres, the neighborhoods of London, the expressions of the characters. Its graphics soften a rather harsh statement while celebrating those who dare to say no. With Lizzy Stewart, the conquest of freedom becomes an art in itself.