Twice nominated for the Turner Prize, Royal Academician sculptor Alison Wilding is known for merging common 'stuff' in uncommon ways to deliver a new message. In Wilding’s words:
‘I think a lot of work these days has this huge backstory where you need to read the text and then look at the work and then put the two together. And I don't think you need to do that with what I do. I think what you see is absolutely what you get. And also, maybe what you don't see’
Wilding has made one screenprint in collaboration with Kip Gresham in which overlapping oval forms and dynamic mark-making create a sense of movement. Titled in reference to the mythical Greek figure of Phaethon, the name was also used by the Ancient Greeks as an alternative for the planet of Jupiter whose cycles have been the subject of numerous poems and myths over time.
Wilding came into prominence in the 1980s as one of a group of sculptors including Richard Deacon and Antony Gormley. She has been the subject of several major solo exhibitions at galleries including the Serpentine Gallery, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate, Liverpool. She has shown extensively throughout the UK and abroad and has been acquired into several major public collections. ‘Still Water’, a memorial to UK citizens affected by terrorism overseas was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in May 2018.
Notable awards include a Henry Moore Fellowship at the British School at Rome (1988); the Joanna Drew Travel Bursary (2007); The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award (2008) and the Bryan Robertson Award (2012). Wilding was elected to the Royal Academy in 1999. She was made Eranda Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy Schools in 2018 and was made OBE in 2019.
She lives and works in London.
Read more on how the sculptor adapted her creative output and perspective in our blog post
