Kings Road Gallery & Tanya Baxter Contemporary, London, United Kingdom

Madame Recamier by Alison Watt

Alison Watt Biography

Alison Watt

Alison Watt graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1988. While still a student, she won the John Player Portrait Award and as a result was commissioned to paint a portrait of the Queen Mother. Her first works to become well known were dryly painted figurative canvases, often female nudes, in light filled interiors. An exhibition of her work entitled Fold in 1997 at Edinburgh's Fruitmarket Gallery was the first introducing fabric alongside her models. This may have been inspired by the 19th Century painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and also suggestion a movement towards more abstract art. In 2000 she became the youngest artist to be offered a solo exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art with an exhibition called Shift, with 12 huge paintings featuring fabric alone. These edged ever more towards the abstract yet had a strange, sensual quality suggestive of a human presence [or absence]. From January 2006 to February 2008, Watt served as the seventh artist in residence at the National Gallery, London. She worked within the gallery, inspired by particular items from the collection. The work she created in this time is displayed in a special exhibition, Phantom, in the Sunley Room, running from March to June 2008. She is one of the youngest artists to present a solo exhibit at the gallery, and was awarded an OBE in the 2008 New Years Honours.

©2009 PicassoMio - All rights reserved.