Alison Critchlow
Artistic practice: Fine Art
Can also offer advice and support with:
- Public engagement: Adults, including working with men in jail
Alison Critchlow is a British painter based in Cumbria, with a studio beside the Solway Firth. She graduated from Falmouth School of Art, Cornwall in 1992 and completed 3 years postgraduate study with Turps Art School, London (2014 – 2017). She has exhibited widely in Britain, most recently at The Art House, Wakefield and in ‘Beating Time’ at the University of Cambridge. Other exhibitions have included: ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, no format Gallery, Gracefield Arts Centre, Fairfield Mill, Brantwood, Open Eye Gallery (Edinburgh), Manchester Art Show, Bianco Nero and Penwith Gallery (St Ives). Her work is in several collections in the UK and abroad.
In 2021 she was awarded an Arts Council England grant which funded a period of research and development focused on the work of Romanian/American artist Hedda Sterne, working with mentors in the UK and the USA. She is also the recipient of an Oppenheim John Downes Trust award (2022). Alison was artist in residence on the Isle of Iona throughout February 2017 and took up a residency at Cill Rialaig, Ireland in 2023. Both of these were important periods of reflection which fuelled a huge surge forward artistically.
From 2017 Alison spent two years learning from Wordsworth’s creative process, drawing from his manuscripts, and painting in Dove Cottage garden, his home at Grasmere. This time underpins much of her subsequent work. It sparked many questions about place, perception, and the interweaving of environment with internal boundaries. It also made her wonder how poetry and painting might correspond. Since 2017 she has worked closely with the Wordsworth Trust on various projects, co-curating ‘Weather Words’, an exhibition at the Wordsworth Museum, giving talks about their art collection and developing a ground-breaking format for Poetry and Paint workshops with them.
Alison has been a professional artist for 30 years, initially working in a big communal WASPS studio in Edinburgh before moving to Cumbria. She was gallery artist with various commercial galleries for 20 years in the north of Britain. In 2016 she stepped away from this in order to pursue practice-led research – using painting practice as a way of thinking – exploring new creative territory and collaborative projects.
In 2019 Alison ran a big mural project with a group of men in prison. The art project at HMP Haverigg was spread over three months and involved art history, discussion and debate as well as practical painting skills. It was an uplifting project which saw one of the cell blocks transformed as part of the education programme at the jail. Other teaching has been with various student groups: University of Cumbria; California Polytechnic; Anglia Ruskin University; teaching creative ‘poetry and paint’ sessions for the Eden Project; Maryport Literary Festival; Tullie House (Once Upon A Planet exhibition); Natural Connections; and a wide range of community groups.
Talks and events recently have been at: no format gallery, London; The Art House Wakefield; University of Cambridge; Wordsworth Museum; All Hallows, Fletchertown; Eden Project ‘Festival of Discovery’.
If you would be interested in having Alison as a Mentor, please get in touch with chris@cacn.co.uk explaining
- A little about your role/practice in the cultural field
- what sort of help you feel would be useful
- which of the available mentors you feel would be most suitable for you
Deadline for applications is 12 noon on Thursday 28 March.
