Talk #86

Alison Lloyd

Alison Lloyd is an artist based in Nottingham whose early work includes curating and commissioning exhibitions, catalogues, and projects with Stephen Willats, Marina Abramović, and Sarah Staton’s Supastore, which presented early works by Jeremy Deller, Mathew Higgs, and Jessica Voorsanger within a freelance and institutional context. Before she returned to an arts practice in 2010, Alison also worked for Birmingham Artists Studio supporting resident artists to develop their individual projects, followed by working as Head of Visual Arts & Literature for Arts Council England, East Midlands Office. She is a resident artist at Primary.

Alison's artistic work, stretching back to the 1970s, has been re-envisioned for several exhibitions together with Jake, a book published by TG Gallery in 2014. Her talks and lectures emphasise material developed from a fascination in documenting aspects of her life. She refers to these photographic series as 'events', which capture a range of speculative and choreographed happenings. These are often represented in the order in which they were shot, recalling moving-image capture and a connection to the documentation of performance. In 2014 her work shifted to include walking as art and out of these experiences a PhD emerged, Contouring: Women, Walking and Art (2020). The thesis combines a critical, analytical discussion of women artists of the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s with a reflective evaluation of the emergence of walking in her work. Her return to practice was driven by her experiences as a recreational hill walker and from art literature which foregrounds historical walking practices, largely within the field of postmodern sculpture. Her practice has adapted navigation, route-finding skills and contouring as artistic strategies, tools, and processes.