Allison Huot

Creating Art from Within

By Olivia Bosma

Every artist has their own styles, themes, and inspirations that are carried throughout each of their creative pieces. In Canadian artist and Thunder Bay resident Allison Huot’s case, she sees music in colour and uses this to create incredible works of art.

“I have always been painting and into visual arts,” Huot says. “My parents were actually musicians, so I have always been exposed to and around musicians and artists.” After studying and obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Algoma University, Huot did not wait to follow her passions, and begin working professionally as an artist.

“I work in both acrylic and oil mediums. Mainly oils though,” says Huot. “I do both figurative and abstract paintings. I also kind of blend both of the disciplines.” The inspiration and style for her paintings are grounded and centred around kinesthetic memory within the body, as well as music. Huot has a condition known as synesthesia, which is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway—which is why she sees colours when she hears music.

Throughout the years, Huot has made a name for herself and accomplished many impressive feats, having recently been featured in Vanity Fair UK in May. “It was a pretty cool experience actually,” says Huot. “I guess they saw my Instagram and my art, and they contacted me. It was quite an honour to be in that publication, for sure!” Huot did a three-month campaign in two issues of the publication. Along with this accomplishment, she also works with the Alessandro Berni Gallery in New York, has an art dealer who handles the selling of her pieces, and has a solo exhibition coming up in Montreal.

Turning any passion into a successful career takes drive, courage, and tenacity to reach the end goal. Huot is not unfamiliar with facing these challenges head on and will continue to do so in the future. “It takes years of gruelling hard work to get anywhere. It took me years of driving back and forth to Toronto at the drop of a hat to get me to where I am today,” says Huot, “So I hope to continue doing what I am doing now. I wake up every day doing what I love, and there are so many Canadian icon painters who are painting well into their 90s, so I guess that is my end game.”