Alyssa Fanning makes art about the strength and fragility of the natural world. Her intimate, small-scale drawings in graphite, charcoal, or colored pencil on paper—from a series titled After the Disaster—invite close viewing and reveal miniature worlds that connect the microscopic with the macroscopic. Delicately rendered through a labor-intensive process that combines improvisation with perceptual observation, these drawings depict disasters and triumphs through imagined landscapes (and/or mindscapes) that are personal, cultural, and ecological in scope.

Alyssa Fanning was born in 1985 in Teaneck, NJ, and lives in northern NJ. She received her MFA from Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ (2012) and her BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY (2007).

Fanning has mounted solo exhibitions at Platform Project Space in Brooklyn, NY (2021) and Carlton Hobbs, New York City, NY (2021).

She has had her work featured in group shows, including 2023 A.I.R. Biennial: Friend of the Artist, curated by Eriola Pira, at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (2023); Break of Day, Edge of Night at the Painting Center in New York City, NY (2022); Quiet Fire at Far x Wide in Brooklyn, NY (2021); and From Light to Dark via Jason McCoy Gallery on Artsy, New York City, NY (2021).

She has also been featured in publications such as Zephry and Maize (2021), Two Coats of Paint (2021, 2020), Art Spiel (2021, 2019), and Gorky’s Granddaughter (2020).