Past Artists - Alison Watt

Alison Watt is a naturalist, artist, and writer who lives with her husband Kim on Protection Island near Nanaimo B.C., where they have raised two children, Lindsay and Sophie.

Alison grew up in Victoria B.C., studied biology at Simon Fraser University and botany at the University of British Columbia. She has worked as the Education Coordinator at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, a tour leader in Central and South America, and a naturalist aboard the west coast schooner Maple Leaf, sailing among B.C.’s Gulf Islands, Haida Gwaii, the Great Bear Rainforest, and Alaska.

Alison’s background informs both her painting and writing. Watercolours and acrylics draw on images from nature. Her non-fiction book, set on a remote seabird colony, is a moving memoir about life and death in the human and natural world. In her poems, scenes of ordinary life unfold in a backdrop of light cycles, tides, and weather, and attempt to capture the lyricism of the processes of nature. Some are set in an Amazon Research station and explore taxonomy and diversity. In others, she moves past nature as a backdrop to delve more deeply into its inner, often invisible workings (photosynthesis, pollination…) to release them from the language of science.