about the artist
Alissa Branch is a visual and theatrical artist who creates dreamy mixed media paintings embedded with echoes of language.
VISUAL ART
Artist Bio: Working primarily with acrylic paint and oil pastel, Alissa incorporates paper scraps- pages from Shakespeare, favorite song lyrics, newsprint, vintage dress pattern tissue. and handwritten domestic notes. She tears the paper into organic shapes and layers them into her canvases, allowing the physical act of tearing to guide the composition as she creates expressive figures and abstract landscapes embedded with language. Frequent subjects include winged women and wild, windswept places, exploring themes of transformation and resilience. Through the interplay of vivid imagery and fractured text, Alissa’s paintings invite the viewer to reexamine their relationship to traditional stories. Alissa has recently shown her work with the celebrated Susan Eddings Perez Gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in the Small Works show at The Depot Gallery in Norman, Oklahoma. Alissa will be the featured artist for May 2026 at The Venue Gallery in Bloomington, Indiana.
Artist Statement:
I make art from fragments — of torn paper, of journeys, of remembered places, of stories that wake me from sleep and refuse to fade. Travel shapes the color and rhythm of my work: crossing borders, absorbing landscapes, carrying the atmosphere of one place into another. Trained in theatre and steeped in Shakespeare, I'm drawn to mythic arcs — exile and return, fall and flight, destruction and renewal. My figures often hover between human and archetype, memory and dream. Through rupture and reassembly, I seek the moment when something torn and fractured grows wings.
HISTORY & EDUCATION
Alissa holds dual American / UK citizenship, having been born in Hastings, England and raised in Norman, Oklahoma, where her father was a long-time Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oklahoma. She has lived and worked in many places including Los Angeles, London, Indianapolis, and Chicago. She earned her BFA in Acting from the University of Oklahoma, an MA in Theatre from Washington University in St. Louis, and a certificate from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, where she studied acting with teachers including then-artistic director Mark Rylance and Royal Shakespeare Company actress Jane Lapotaire, who has become a lifelong mentor and friend.
Alissa has always been fascinated by art and storytelling. An avid reader and daydreamer as a child, she began her creative journey by convincing her little brother to act out stories with her in the family living room. In 5th grade, her mother signed her up for a local acting class where she was assigned a monologue by Tennessee Williams, prompting Alissa to devour all of his plays. In 6th grade, she read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in English class, and decided she'd better read all of his plays, too, igniting a life-long passion for words- a passion that has ultimately guided her career.
THEATRICAL WORK
Alissa has had an extensive career as an actor, director, voice-over artist, and educator specializing in Shakespeare and heightened text, and she recently served for several years as Associate Artistic Director for Oklahoma Shakespeare, Oklahoma's only professional Shakespeare theatre.
As a director, favorite professional productions include: Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, and The Taming of the Shrew. Alissa’s university productions have won numerous regional and national awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, including: 9 Parts of Desire (KCACTF Director's Choice Award); Shakespeare's Other Women (KCACTF Awards for Excellence with Heightened Text and Excellence in Ensemble Acting). Her production of Miss Evers' Boys also won the KCACTF Director's Choice Award for Region 6, a national award for Distinguished Achievement in Direction of a Play - and subsequently performed at the South African National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa where Alissa was honored with a National Arts Festival Silver Ovation Award for Outstanding Production of a Play.
Favorite roles as an actor include: Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Lady Percy in Henry IV, and Catherine in Proof.
TEACHING
Alissa taught acting in the BFA Acting program in Helmerich School of Drama at the University of Oklahoma for 20 years, where she earned the title of tenured Associate Professor of Drama and developed the program’s Advanced Shakespeare curriculum. Alissa has also taught acting at Indiana Repertory Theatre, the Will Geer Theatricum in Los Angeles, Butler University, and has presented acting / audition workshops across the United States, the UK, and South Africa. Additionally, Alissa has developed a series of popular one-and-two day acting workshops, which she offers at The Actor Factory and other theatrical institutions across the country. She accepts private acting clients as time allows.
THE GREAT COURSES PLUS
In 2022, Alissa created her dream course on Shakespeare in performance for the online learning company The Great Courses Plus, titled Experiencing Shakespeare: From Page to Stage, which can be found streaming here.
TRAVEL
As an extension of her work with The Great Courses, in September of 2026 and 2027 Alissa will begin leading small-group tours of Shakespeare's England for The Great Courses Journeys. As the tour's resident "Shakespeare Expert," Alissa will provide commentary, history, and lecture/demonstrations about how actors and directors approach Shakespeare plays today. Designed for Shakespeare practitioners, Shakespeare fans, and those who are merely curious to learn, no Shakespeare experience is required to join the tour. The link to information about this tour can be found here.
Alissa also leads yearly tours of Scotland alongside her partner (noted folk/Americana singer-songwriter Tim Grimm) for his company, Scotland Folk Tours, and tours of Ireland through Inishfree Irish Music Tours. Additionally, Alissa and Tim lead yearly, week-long small-group sailing tours on the historic Grace Bailey two-masted schooner., built in 1882 (2026 Grace Bailey tour information is here). Alissa and Tim also plan to begin leading tours of Italy in fall of 2026.
HOME & HAPPENINGS
Alissa & Tim split their time between their modern-rustic cabin deep in the woods of Southern Indiana and extended travel across America, the UK, and Europe. In the fall of 2025, they starred together in the Oklahoma Shakespeare production of The Lion in Winter.