Allison Bianco is a Rhode Island based visual artist and printmaker whose work illuminates how landscapes can change slowly over time, or drastically with storm surges. She is a 2025-26 MacDowell Fellow and her work is in collections including Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; RISD Museum; Yale University Art Gallery; and The New York Public Library, among others.
Bianco's current series explores the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, which includes Stand to Sea, Catch You on the Flip Side, Ghost in the Dunes, So Ends this Day, and Star Studio After All. For this project, Bianco gathers source material through multi-day trips to the landscapes and communities affected by the historic storm. Each research trip corresponds to a specific geographic point along the hurricane’s path as it moved north from Long Island through New England and into Canada.
Earlier works include the expansive Pouring on Jamestown, that pictures the eastern side of Conanicut Island in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, diminished by a massive expanse of ocean below; Winter Flounder, based on an old freeway exit ramp that, during cold months, transports the driver to an icy world with stone cliffs that resemble a mountain pass; Leave Your Troubles Behind where an oddly monumental sun casts a golden glimmer on the ocean, fireworks explode in the distance and a small fishing vessel hurries away followed by a shrouded sea creature; and Later that Day at Second Beach, that pictures Middletown, Rhode Island and features the weathered cliffs at shore's edge below St. George School, diminished in the distance. Dramatic arched fireworks nod to Ando Hiroshige's Fireworks over Ryogoku Bridge 1856-58.