Allison Neal
The landscape is made of layers of history and memory and time. The past remains visible in traces and shadows. It stains the landscape like lichen and dissolves it in grey clouds and damp mist.
Here, in South Wales, the recent industrial past has been brushed out of sight. Pits and quarries, limekilns and iron works have vanished. Slag heaps are grassed over, reservoirs turned into lakes, railway lines have become footpaths but traces still remain. An older memory of small hill farms has left it’s shadows too and, older still, the faintest of footprints mark the paths of the people who built hill forts and raised standing stones. Accretions of time, of memory, overlay and cover and hide the past. Only fragments survive to whisper in forgotten languages.
Since the beginning of the year I have been working in the landscape of the coal valleys of South Wales, looking for an equivalence, not to what the landscape looks like, but to how it hides and reveals the past. My pencil walks across the surface of the land listening to its history.
The collages are made from fragments of other paintings. The gestures and marks which held one meaning now convey very different information. They are transposed and transformed just as the landscape has been.
Allison Ruth Boughton Neal
07976 459573
a.neal23@icloud.com
allisonneal.com
Qualifications
PhD by practice University of Gloucester.
M.A. Printmaking Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts.
A.T.C. Sussex University.
B.A. Fine Art - Painting and Printmaking University of Wolverhampton, Faculty of Art & Design
Recent Employment
Lecturer MA Fine Art University of Gloucestershire.
Drawing workshops, The Printshed, Madley.
Course Leader BA(Hons) Fine Art Hereford College of Arts March ‘04 – Sept 2015
Professional Engagement
External Examiner AB Art & Design University of Ulster ’12- ‘15
External Examiner HND Fine Art Buckinghamshire New University ’08 – 09
Pre validation Reader HND /BA Top Up Fine Art Thames Valley University July ‘09
Pre Validation Panel BA Fine Art University of Worcester July ’08
Design, development and validation of MA Fine Arts course HCA ‘13
Design, development and validation of BA(Hons) Fine Art course HCA ‘05
Recent Exhibitions
2017. 40 Days - Discoed
2015 PhD exhibition – Hardwick Centre of Art & Photography University of Gloucester
2013 Derwent Drawing Prize Exhibition
The Last Supper - Discoed
2012 The Stations of the Cross - Discoed
2011 h.Arts Selected Exhibition - Hereford Kia Steele h.Arts Prize
2009 Paintings & Prints Oriel Barker Gallery Pontypool
Royal West of England Annual Exhibition
2008 Royal West of England Annual Exhibition
Colours You Can’t Imagine St David’s Hall Cardiff
Showborough House Spring Exhibition
2007 Telling Stories solo exhibition Llanover Hall Arts Centre Cardiff
2006 Royal West of England Annual Exhibition
Birmingham Soc. Of Artists Open Print Show Tanner Prize
Spring Show Galanthus Gallery Herefordshire
2005 Art in Action - Oxford
Group Exhibition - The Gallery Upstairs Abergavenny
2004 The Thin Line – group exhibition Oriel Barker Pontypool
New Work - solo exhibition - The Rodd, Presteigne
New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
Beyond the Borders - Llanover Hall Arts Centre, Cardiff
New Works on Paper - Burt’s Gallery, London
Originals - Contemporary Print Exhibition - Mall Galleries London
Hot off the Press - Curwen Gallery, London
Encore - Royal West of England Academy Exhibition
2003 The Midland Grand Christmas Show - London
Royal West of England Annual Exhibition
Hill Court Gallery Summer Show -Abergavenny
National Print Exhibition - Mall Galleries Fabriano Mill Paper Prize
Artichoke Print Workshop Award
Galleries Magazine Prize