MFA 2026 Artists MFA 2026 Artists: Allison Bergman

About Allison Bergman

Alison Bergman is an educator and ceramic artist living in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. She owns the small art gallery Art & Joy in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where she exhibits her own work alongside the work of friends and fellow artists. Bergman holds a BFA in Film, Video, and Animation from the Rhode Island School of Design, a MAAE from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Post-Baccalaureate in Ceramics from UMass Dartmouth. She is currently completing her MFA in Ceramics at UMass Dartmouth. Bergman has received the Graduate Fellowship in Community Engagement at UMass Dartmouth and the Learning in Arts & Culture Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center, which culminated in an exhibition at the Vermont Studio Center.

Statement

Through a hybrid practice that merges sculpture, painting, printmaking, fiber, and installation, I use space as a medium to create fluid environments where printed clay forms, woven forms and painted walls interact, emphasizing lightness, acceptance, and the possibility of joy. My ceramics practice explores how joy can function as a deliberate material response to breakage, both lived and literal, through color, repetition of pattern and form, and acts of metaphorical and physical repair. Individual ceramic elements are assembled, rearranged, and placed in dialogue with painted walls, allowing color and pattern to move between surface and object while the installation itself remains open to change. This fluid relationship between wall, sculpture, and space reflects an ongoing process of improvisation and reconstruction. The work seeks to transform moments of imperfection into opportunities for renewal, creating environments where repair and readjustment become generative, and where the possibility for joy remains present.

@alisonmbergmanart