Alison Philp
I have worked in arts education for many years and believe in the importance of arts education for all, to offer soft skills that empower people, help them navigate the world, and learn to connect and understand themselves whilst also inventing new ways of living well and coping with change.
In my arts practice I focus on the local natural world in a non-extractive way. I have developed an interest in recording the connections, interrelationships and entanglements I see happening around me – how these can even become metaphors for crucial ideas regarding human ways of being in the world, as well as records that witness a changing climate.
I am influenced by philosophical botanical writings, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that present ideas of how botanising exercises our faculty of attentive observation and teaches us to ‘see well’.
EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
Oct – Nov 2024 Introduction to Permaculture For Artists Design Certificate (awarded by Permaculture Association, www.permaculture.org.uk)
May – June 2021 Module in Drawing Ecologies at DJCAD SCQF
2016 – 2018 Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee MFA Art and Humanities
1986 – 1990 Edinburgh College of Art BA (Hons) in Drawing and Painting. 2:1
RECENT EXHIBITIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
June 2025 -Short Visual Artist Residency, St Andrews Botanic Gardens, St Andrews, Fife (funded by a Fife Visual Artist Award)
November 2024 -Group Micro Exhibition at St Andrews Botanic Garden as part of ‘ArtMoves Fife’, www.artmovesfife.org
June 2024 - June 2025 - TURPS Painting Correspondence Course
2019 - 2025 Participant in North Fife Open Studios. www.openstudiosfife.co.uk
May 2023 - EAST WEST, Two person Exhibition at Burnside Gallery, Selkirk. https://www.burnsidegallery.co.uk/
May 2023 ‘Drawing is Free’ Tenth Anniversary Group Exhibition at Paris College of Art. www.drawingisfree.org
Sept 2019 Interview ‘In The Frame’ for The Great Outdoors Magazine, www.tgomagazone.co.uk
Dec 2016 - Dec 2018 Visual Art Reviewer. Several articles published in The Skinny Magazine (print), Dundee University Review of the Arts (online), Generator Projects (online),
Sept 2018 - Thirty minute presentation to DJCAD third year students as part of expanded painting module DJ31040 – ‘Squirrel, Badger, Hog, Sable’
Sept 2018 Association for Study Literature and Environment (ASLE UKI). Presented my essay ‘Art Proceeds Without A Map’ at Orkney Conference.
April 2018 ‘Genius Loci, The Walk to the Cave’ included in the Walking Library for a Wild City, www.walkinglibraryproject.wordpress.com
2015 - Gingko Projects, New South Glasgow Hospitals Project.
Painting included as part of ‘100 Flowers’ Public Collection.
2014 Art in Healthcare Scotland Ltd. Work included as part of Public Collection.
RECENT RELEVANT EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Feb 2025 – present - Secretary and Executive Committee Member of Scottish Artists Union.
April 2022 – present, Freelance Visual Art Educator
2018 – present - Self-employed Visual Artist, producing and selling drawings, prints and paintings.
2016/18 Visual Art Reviewer for Dundee Universities Review of the Arts (DURA) online magazine.
Helping Artists Keep Going
Axis is an artist-led charity supporting contemporary visual artists with resources, connection, and visibility.