Alison Watt is a widely acclaimed Scottish figurative artist who was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2008. Her meticulously-rendered and often monumental paintings initially stemmed from portraiture but now have come to suggest the presence of human form in the very absence of its representation.
Read MoreWatt was born in Greenock, Scotland in 1965 and describes her earliest memories as being about painting—as essential and emotional to her as a 'way of being.' During a childhood trip to London, she visited the National Gallery and encountered Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' Madame Moitessier (1856), and his sumptuous rendering of fabric in the figure's lavish gown became a source of inspiration that she repeatedly returns to.
From 1983—1987, Watt studied at The Glasgow School of Art, winning the prestigious John Player Portrait Award—now known as the BP Portrait Award—for contemporary portrait painting in her final year. She went on to complete her postgraduate studies at Glasgow during 1987—1988. From this early acclaim, Watt was commissioned to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1989) which is still held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.
Watt's emergence and her distinctive approach to portrait painting in the 1980s signalled a renewed interest in representational figurative work at a time when Western art was largely dominated by abstraction and conceptual art. She studied alongside The New Glasgow Boys—an influential group of artists including Peter Howson, Ken Currie and Steven Campbell—whose figurative works were honest and raw, contrasting with Watt's light-filled canvases.
Watt lives and works in Edinburgh.
Alison Watt's practice is deeply concerned with the materiality of the objects she represents, influenced by the trompe l'oeil painters of the 17th century in her still life elements. Her large-scale paintings are a product of intense rumination, with the objects she depicts being taken out of their original context so that the viewer may fill in the gaps.
Watt's initial success in her final years of art school came from her portraits and self-portraits, often of female nudes in airy interiors. From the mid-1980s for a period of 10 years, she worked every day with a life model in order to immerse herself in the study of the human figure.
Alison Watt, born 1965. Artist (1986—1987) shows the artist staring out from the canvas, hand on forehead as though checking her temperature, with an extremely muted colour palette of faded peach and duck egg blue.
In 1997, Watt completed the series 'Fold'__for Edinburgh's Fruitmarket Gallery, introducing fabric alongside her figures and marking a significant turning point in her practice. This was followed by her 'Shift' series (2000), featuring 12 large-scale works where the figure is removed entirely in favour of swathes of fabric. Although these artworks are without human counterpart, the negative space in the drapery suggest both organic forms and the meticulous silks in Ingres' portraits, which was direct inspiration for Sabine (2000).
From 2006—2008, Watt was awarded the prestigious Associate Artist residency at the National Gallery in London—the youngest in the award's history. The enveloping works produced, culminating in the series Phantom (2008), were inspired by her close contact with the works of old masters within the collection that she was allowed special access to. Pulse and Echo feature the subtle undulations of white fabric, this time in a knotted formation that directly mimics the popular Romantic collar of the 19th century, as seen in Ingres' Monsieur de Norvins (1811).
Similarly, Francisco de Zurbarán's Saint Francis in Meditation (1653—1659), particularly the swooping hood of his cowl, provided much of Watt's inspiration, as she became fascinated by the organic forms possible within fabric that suggest the implied presence of a body.
In 2020, Watt completed the series A Portrait Without Likeness inspired again by the work of an old master Allan Ramsay. Taking his sketchbooks and two portraits of Ramsay's wives Anne Bayne (1758—1760) and Margaret Lindsay (c.1739) as her starting point, she began to abstract still life elements from within the portraits—a rose with a broken stem, a lace collar and a quill—onto empty white backgrounds in order to reframe them and give them new narratives of their own. The title of the exhibition relates to Watt's treatment of these objects, as still life was traditionally a low genre of painting, and appeals to the viewer's imagination to give them new status and interest.
In 2005, Watt was commissioned to create the installation Still for the Old St Paul's Church, Edinburgh.
In 1986, Watt won the First Prize for Painting at Glasgow School of Art and the British Institution Fund, First Prize for Painting from the Royal Academy, London. In 1987, she won the John Player Portrait Award from the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Armour Prize for Still Life Painting from the Glasgow School of Art. In 1989, Watt won the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award and the City of Glasgow Lord Provost Prize in 1993. In 1996, she won the Scottish Arts Council: Individual Artists Award. In 2003, Watt was the winner of the Creative Scotland Award and Shortlisted for Jerwood Painting Prize. In 2005, Watt won the ACE Award for Still, her installation at Old St Paul's Church, Edinburgh, along with the National Gallery Artist in Residence (2006—2008) and the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence. From 2006—2008, she was an Associate Artist at the National Gallery, London. In 2008, Watt won an Order of the British Empire. In 2017, she became a Fellow of the Royal Edinburgh Society.
Alison Watt has been the subject of both solo exhibition and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions include A Portrait Without a Likeness, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (2020); A Shadow on the Blind, Parafin, London (2019); The Sun Never Knew How Wonderful It Was, Parafin, London (2016); GENERATION, Alison Watt: Paintings 1986 — 2014, Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Perth, UK (2014); Hiding in Full View, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2011).
Group exhibitions include Folds, Tristan Hoare Gallery, London (2020); Fabric: Touch and Identity, Compton Verney Art Gallery, Compton Verney (2020); TWENTY, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2018); The Modern Portrait, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (2017); Ages of Wonder, National Galleries of Scotland and Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2017).
Alison Watt's Instagram can be found here.
Annie Curtis | Ocula | 2021
