Born in Montreal Canada in 1959, Alison moved in with her family to Portland Maine at the age of nine. Alison went on to study art at the University of Southern Maine and at the Portland School of Art having been determined since the age of five to be an artist.
In the years after her studies, Alison created traditional landscapes and over time evolved a highly individual style of painting using a combination of acrylic paint, oil bars and pastels to create works exploding with colour and movement. The skewed perspectives rich texture, dramatic colour and expressive drawing in Alison's works are reminiscent of Van Gogh and Matisse. As with her predecessors she reveals the personal and spiritual world she has discovered with spontaneity and directness.
Simplification of the landscape around her into childlike geometric imagery saturated with the rich colour and highlighted with gold leaf creates a dream like work filled with a playfulness and pervasive happiness- a feeling not unexpected by Goodwin who seems to find inspiration in a space between wakefulness and dreaming.