Alison O'Neill
Alison O'Neill makes non-narrative, experimental moving image works that use video as a material to explore domestic imagination.
Her work looks at how the domestic space can both contain and construct the female subject and explores the formal, and often abstract, beauty of the ordinary and the everyday. This mundane beauty becomes the catalyst for an escape route into an imaginary world.
She trained in Fine Art at Falmouth College of Arts before completing an MA in Feminist Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts at the University of Leeds, where she studied under the feminist art historian and cultural theorist Griselda Pollock.
Earlier video work explored the maternal experience within the context of power relations as well as visualising maternal subjectivity, longing and desire. This body of work included the videos Punctures and Nothing Gets Through, which were both shortlisted for the Birth Rites Collection Prize.
Recent exhibitions and screenings include Floorplan at Unit 2 Gallery, Hastings (2026); Bridge Video, Chicago (2023); Artist-Parent Pandemic Video and New Genres at the CAA Annual Conference, New York (2021); Open Out at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2019); The Birth Rites Collection Shortlist Screenings at The Whitworth, Manchester, and King's College London (2018); The Art of Surrender at Stills: Centre for Photography, Edinburgh (2018); and Quickening at the Nightingale Cinema, Chicago (2017). Her work is forthcoming in The Fold at Virga Gallery (online), opening October 2026.
EDUCATION
PGCE Art and Design, University of Cambridge
MA Feminist Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts, University of Leeds
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Falmouth College of Arts
AWARDS/PRIZES
DYCP Award, Arts Council England, 2024-2025
Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust Award, 2023
a-n Professional Development Mentoring Bursary, 2020
Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust Award, 2019
Birth Rites Collection Competition for New Works: Shortlist, 2018
Sketch Open Drawing Prize Shortlist, 2017
Birth Rites Bi-Annual Award: Shortlist, 2015
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
The Fold, Virga Gallery, Online, UK, 2026
Floorplan, Unit 2 Gallery, Hastings, UK, 2026
SFSA Drawing Open, No Format Gallery, London, UK, 2024
Viloma, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK, 2023
SFSA Drawing Open, No Format Gallery, London, UK, 2023
Unconsumed, The Shoe Factory Social Club, Norwich, UK, 2023
Viloma, Citizens Art Gallery, London, UK, 2023
Shutterhub Open, Cafe Gallery, St Margaret's House, London, UK, 2021
Homeworks, Spilt Milk Gallery, Edinburgh (Online), UK, 2020
Time to Think (Encore), Pil'ours Festival, St Gilles Croix de Vie, France, 2020
Acropolis Remix, The Wrong Biennale, Athens and Online, 2019
Home, Gallery at Home, Usk, Wales, UK, 2019
Time to Think, Pil'ours Festival, St Gilles Croix de Vie, France, 2019
Open Out, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK, 2019
Oh MotHER, Spilt Milk Gallery, Custom House Leith, Edinburgh, UK, 2018
The Art of Relation, Cambridge Artworks, Cambridge, UK, 2018
Nasty Women London, The Black and White Building, London, UK, 2017
Sketch Open Drawing Prize, Rabley Drawing Centre, Marlborough and touring programme: Plymouth College of Art, Devon, UK, Black Swan Arts, Frome, UK and Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster, UK, 2017
Nasty Women Cambridge, Cambridge Artworks, UK, 2017
Desperate Artwives: 5th Edition, Granby Space, London, UK, 2017
Object, Object, Alison Richard Building, University of Cambridge, UK, 2016
Project AfterBirth, White Moose Gallery, Devon, UK, 2015
ProCreate Project Launch, Women's Art Library, Goldsmiths, UK, 2015
One For Sorrow, Arts Centre Gallery, North Hertfordshire College, UK, 2015
Follow the Fellow, Changing Spaces, Regent Street, Cambridge, UK, 2011
SELECTED SCREENINGS
Bridge Video, Chicago, USA, 2023
Artist-Parent Pandemic Video and New Genres, CAA Annual Conference, New York, USA, 2021
The Art of Surrender: Motherhood and Moving Image, Stills: Centre for Photography, Edinburgh, UK, 2018
Birth Rites Collection Prize: Shortlist Screening, The Whitworth, Manchester, UK, 2018
Birth Rites Collection Prize: Shortlist Screening, King's College, London, UK, 2018
Quickening, Nightingale Cinema, Chicago, USA, 2017
Brood Film Festival, Exeter Phoenix, Devon, UK, 2016
Birth Rites Bi-Annual Award: shortlisted artworks, MediaCityUK, Salford, UK, 2015
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
Lass Struggle (Exhibition and screening programme), FiliArt at Filia Conference, Institute of Education, London, UK, 2017 (Co-curator)
RESIDENCIES
Digital Artist Residency, Online, UK, 2018
Associate Artist, DIEP (Digital Institute for Early Parenthood), UK, 2016-2018
AA2A Artist in Residence, North Hertfordshire College, UK, 2014-2015
AA2A Artist in Residence, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, 2011-2012
CATALOGUES/PRESS
Thatcher, J., Mother and Child Divided, Art Monthly, July/Aug 2015 (mention)
Sketch Open Drawing Prize, Rabley Publications, 2017
Lass Struggle, exhibition catalogue, FiliArt, 2017
PUBLICATIONS/CONFERENCE PAPERS
O'Neill, A. and Paul, J., One for Sorrow: The Collaborative Work of Mother and Not-Yet Mother, in The Maternal in Creative Work: Intergenerational Discussions on Motherhood and Art, edited by Elena Marchevska and Valerie Walkerdine, Routledge (Book Chapter), 2019
Art History and the Objectification of Women, Objectification and Gendered Violence Symposium, CRASSH, University of Cambridge (Conference Paper), 2016
Imaginary Children, Motherhood and Creative Practice: Maternal Structures in Creative Work, London South Bank University (Conference Paper), 2015
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