Personal Biography
Allison Massari is a trusted advisor, spokesperson and international speaker. Watch for her on stage at TEDxZaragoza in Spain, speaking on "The Future of Happiness". She has become a fiery voice for the potent power of compassion, kindness, and indestructible perseverance.
Allison specializes in helping people remove blocks to success and to feel passionate in life and work. Her mission is to bring transformation to individuals, businesses and communities. This can be in a highly interactive format with Q & A or delivered in keynote style.
She is one of ten people in the world chosen to teach how to successfully overcome challenges in the international documentary film "ReSolve" by Polaris Global (release date soon). The film is hosted by the Head of Special Forces for the U.S. Military in Afghanistan and focuses on solutions to come through post-traumatic stress. Massari is also the founder of revolutionary programs for teenagers with burn injuries that continue to transform young people's lives at the Adaptive Sports Center in Crested Butte, Colorado. She has been featured in major media including NBC, ABC, FOX and Family Circle Magazine. Massari is on the faculty at Figley Institute, a traumatologist training center.
Her more serious credentials come from her life experience. Allison Massari found peace, purpose, and happiness after overcoming two extraordinary personal tragedies. In 1998, she survived a 60 mph car crash where she was trapped and burned alive; conscious the entire time. Just three years later she was hit again at 60 mph and sustained a brain injury. The level of betrayal she felt from life seemed insurmountable. Then Massari became determined to create an amazing life. Taking a long, steep climb from ashes into recovery, she learned very clearly how to navigate her way to true healing and to a life filled with her greatest professional successes. Her rededicated mission is to share her story of transformation and revitalization to motivate change in people and the organizations that nurture and inspire them. Allison Massari shares how to transform any challenge into an opportunity.
Massari’s professional career is rich with diverse achievements as an entrepreneur. For over 15 years she has been creating, selling and placing fine art with international collectors and Fortune 500 clients such as General Mills, US Airways, and Lockheed Martin. She holds a Masters of Arts degree from School of Visual Arts in New York City and a Bachelor of Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, as well as being the recipient of an adventurous award to study in Brugge, Belgium and La NaPoule, France. The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida displays her collage work in its permanent collection.
“I’ve come to a place where my heart pounds with excitement instead of fear. I learned how to transform my pain and how to take control of my life. If I could do this with my own life and under such extreme circumstances...imagine what you can do with yours.” Allison Massari
Art Biography
Allison Massari’s powerful, intimate, and boldly imagined artwork beckons the viewer - sometimes playfully, sometimes intensely- always with a poignancy that deeply touches the heart. The vulnerability and honesty expressed in her self portraits, the energy and life that flow through her collages, and the unflinching strength and intelligence that can be found in all of her work, show Massari’s commitment to exposing herself in order to find the common thread that connects us as humans.
Primarily a painter, Massari uses “whatever is necessary” to bring her work to life - an interdisciplinary mixture of painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography and collage. Largely known for her self-portraits and her portrayal of the female figure, Massari offers, “I’ve always been deeply interested in understanding people - and I’m fascinated with the human experience. The self-portrait is the most expeditious pathway for me to reach a vulnerability and an honesty to express myself, and to connect to universal emotions of the human condition.”
After receiving her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Massari went on to receive an integrated masters degree by combining MFA programs from Parsons School of Design in painting, and the School of Visual Arts in illustration in New York City. Throughout the country, museum exhibitions and private art collectors have embraced Massari’s work. Her collage work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL. Her art has earned prestigious honors including awards and exhibits in the Tampa Museum of Art, St. Petersburg’s Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Arts Club Gallery of New York City. She has received two Artist-in-Residence Awards from Anderson Ranch Art Center, and was also named Helena Rubenstein Scholar. Commissioned paintings from numerous corporations include Lockheed Martin, US Airways, AAA Motor Club & General Mills.
In 1998, Massari nearly lost her life in a fiery car accident, which has greatly influenced her life and her work. She views the accident as a tremendous gift, allowing her to find her strength, take charge of her beliefs, and live life by her own rules. She arose from the experience - literally a phoenix from the flames.
The same year of her accident, Massari founded a camp for young teen burn survivors, "The Roger Pepper Adventure Camps" in Crested Butte, CO. Roger Pepper was the brave man who pulled Massari from her car, saving her life and risking his own.
Currently, Massari lives in Tiburon CA, where she is consistently creating artwork and living life with excitement, ferocity, and vigor. Her artwork and her life are a testimony to the opportunities that life gives us, if we are open to receive its gifts.
