Alice Wisden

Alice Wisden studied at Wimbledon College of Art, London and now lives and works in Brighton.

Wisden’s work rebounds around a collection of frustrations, anxieties and questions. The characters in her paintings form a unit within the identity of the individual, which is first formulated then challenged. She views her subject’s internal relationship as a family narrative, a violent power struggle to do with dominance. By abruptly corrupting the flow of the pictorial tale violently and crossing out a focal character Wisden creates an intimacy between the victim and the viewer through stark alienation.

Utilizing graffiti with unabashed simplicity that appears absurd, comic and disturbing - sometimes becoming more real than the reality itself, she questions perceptions by disrupting the familiar.

The characters assertive stares suggest that the paintings aren’t actually about them, but the viewer’s own reaction to their perverse circumstance and controversy. This isn’t in the original imagery but in the way the characters are subverted by an implied knowingness, an abrupt confrontation with a natural reality and its discomforts.

Exhibition Record

AAF London 09   |   GX gallery Solo 09   |   Bo Lee Gallery, Bath 09   |   Fresh Meat, Battersea reach 08   |   Flock 2, GX gallery 08   |   B.A Exhibition, Wimbledon college of art   |   Outer Rim, Wimbledon college of art   |   State of the Art, Royal college of Art

All paintings are a mixture of oil paint, oil bar and watercolour on paper fixed to board, some framed.