Alison J Carr
I work in a studio repurposed from a 1920s department store. My work, though, begins in empty theatre seats and expectant lap dance booths. I’m insatiably curious about the bodies we look at, the women who step into the spotlight. What creates their appeal? What is the inner experience of performing charisma like? I fastidiously research real labour as well as fantasy archetypes: myths and testimonies. I interview chorus girls who witnessed seismic social change in the twentieth century. I hunt for alternative narratives in Hollywood musicals. I inhabit the worlds I conjure: I stage myself copying pin-up poses or taking screen grabs from dancing videos. I’m as curious about interior lives as I am about constructed glamour projected outwards.
My artistic lineage is a private boardroom of rebels. Lee Miller, Louise Brooks, Rita Hayworth, Margaret Morris, Anita Berber. Women who inhabited their bodies as proclamations, who shaped their own images rather than being shaped by them. Their refusals fuel the way I approach my own body in performance and the way I look at others.
Long-exposure photographs capture theatre interiors with uncanny detail. Photos rendered on velvet convey the tactile, secretive promises of strip clubs. The watery wash of a single colour on my tracings of performers blur memories with apparitions. Gold ink on black paper swirled into patterns reminiscent of Klimt I use to describe the aura of charisma that surrounds a stripper on stage.
I constantly experiment with ways of working: photography, video, drawing, collage, performance and written pieces, I'm always looking to distil lush sensuality, connection, intention, and ornamentation with refined incision and emotional resonance. When people meet my work, I hope they feel a kind of charge, a recognition that bodies carry history, agency, pleasure, and power. I want my viewers to delight in the truth that all bodies matter.
Lived Experience
I have had an art practice since I graduated from my BA (Hons) in 2001. However, I really consider I found my artistic voice much more recently. Following my PhD the process began in which I integrated what I had learned into my work in a lighter touch, intuitive, imaginative way, thus finding ways of working that are self-sustaining and autonomous. My practice has now become a source of solace and inspiration for me and I believe, has become more engaging to encounter.
I was a lecturer 2009-23, now having left academia, I'm recommitting to my creative autonomy and I work with other artists as a mentor enabling them to find theirs.
Outside of academia, I have found more freedom to incorporate research and scholarly enquiry into my work--it's still there, but playfully so.
Alison J Carr
Born 1978 Sheffield, lives in Sheffield
Education
2013 PhD Fine Art, Sheffield Hallam University
2009 MFA Photography & Media, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
2001 BA (Hons) Fine Art: Combined & Media Art, Sheffield Hallam University
Solo Exhibitions, Performances & Screenings
2026 Ascending a Staircase (& other performances), Bank Street Studios
2025 Adorned in Dreams, Prosaic Projects Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2023 They Danced As One, live scored screening with Rob Bentall, Cultures of Sound, Huddersfield, UK
2022 Night World, Exchange Place, Yorkshire ArtSpace Society, Sheffield, UK
2021 Bubikopf, performance, The Cellar Theatre, Sheffield; NewBridge Project, Newcastle, UK
2020 Ascending A Staircase, Darlington Hippodrome Theatre, Darlington, UK
2019 Into the Spotlight, Platform / Site Gallery, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
The Gaps in the Cannon, McCullough Center, Middlebury College, USA
2018 Felicity Means Happiness, Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK
Selected Group Exhibitions, Performances & Screenings
2025 Mad Dooley Circus Art Show, The Untouchables Bar, Newburgh, NY, USA
2024 Hold the Space, Brown Street Projects, Sheffield, UK
2023 Babble, Ilkon, Ilkeston, UK
Contrafibularities, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield UK
2022 Think of Me With Kindness, Gage Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2021-22 Single Figures, Prosaic Mosaic, Sheffield, UK
2021 Undertow, Group Show, Freelands Foundation, London, UK
2019 Prosaic Mosaic: A Survey of New Paintings, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
Inter-Section, Temporary Contemporary, Huddersfield, UK
Showgirls: Screening and Book Launch, Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow, UK
2018 Construction House, performance, S1 Artspace, DINA, Sheffield, UK
Showgirl Manifesto, Temporary Contemporary, Huddersfield, UK
On Show, Curator’s Show by Joanna Craddock and Dawn Woolley, Leeds Arts University, Leeds, UK
2017 Lay of the Land Performance, HOME, Manchester, UK
2014 WROUGHT One-to-One Performance Festival, The Hive, Sheffield, UK
Three Act Structure, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
London Life, L A Noble, London, UK
Library Interventions / Sharon Kivland, Leeds College of Art, Leeds, UK
You Me You Me You Me, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
Hollywood Forever, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2013 Past/Present, Kinsey Institute Gallery, Indiana, USA
2012 Showtime, with artist Kerstin Honeit, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2011 Showtime, with artist Kerstin Honeit, LoBe Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2009 Greater LA MFA (GLAMFA), California State University Long Beach, USA
MFA Conversations Part II, I-5 Gallery, Brewery Arts Complex, LA, USA
Why Theory: MFA Graduation Exhibition, Spring Arts Tower, LA, USA
Why Video: MFA Video Screening, REDCAT, LA, USA
Woman As Image, thesis exhibition, D301, CalArts, California, USA
2007 Déjà Vu, three-person show, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
2006 Just for Fun, performance, Webster Gotts & Robin Close, Sheffield, UK
Curatorial Projects
2018 Showgirl Manifesto, Temporary Contemporary, Huddersfield, UK
2014 You Me You Me You Me, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
Hollywood Forever, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Residencies
2011 LoBe London Berlin Art Kunst, Berlin, Germany
2010 Terra Summer Residency, Giverny, France
Collections
2020- Numerous private collections
2009 Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender & Reproduction, Indiana, USA
Awards
2024 ‘Looking Forward, New Dialogues’ commission, Museums Sheffield, UK
2022 1:1 Fund, Jerwood Arts
2018-20 Platform / Freelands Artist Programme, Site Gallery, Sheffield
2008 American Association of University Women, International Fellowship
Funding
2021-22 Developing Your Creative Practice, ACE
2018-19 A-N Mentoring
2017-8 Grants for the Arts, ACE
Selected Press
2019 ‘Platform Shoes: Emerging Artists In Sheffield’, Allan Gardner, The Quietus,
‘Platform 2019 review’, Hannah Clugston, Guardian
Join Axis
We support artists
Funding, visibility, connection and practical help.
Membership includes £15 million of Public Liability Insurance!