Alison Wilding
One of Britain's foremost sculptors, Alison Wilding’s work explores inherent contrasts through her innovative approach to material.
Alison Wilding has challenged expectations of sculpture since the 1970s. Her innovative practice combines a wide variety of materials, techniques and forms to create sculptures that examine contrasts, whether it be juxtapositions of containment and concealment, stability and instability, entrapment and mobility, or the disparity between the viewer’s assumption of a material and the artist’s manipulation of it.
Born in 1948 in Blackburn, Wilding studied at Nottingham College of Art from 1966 to 1967. She continued her education at Ravensbourne College of Art, London, between 1967 and 1970, after which she studied at the Royal College of Art, specialising in sculpture. Wilding rose to prominence in the 1980s as part of the New British Sculpture, a group that also included Richard Deacon, Tony Cragg and Anish Kapoor and was known for combining traditional and new industrial materials with both figurative and abstract imagery.
Wilding has relentlessly developed her practice over the course of her career. Since her early sculptural works she has consistently explored the parameters of the medium, from what constitutes sculpture to how it may be experienced. An enduring facet of her art is the manipulation of materials. Wilding rejects any traditional hierarchy of materials, whether industrial or organic, reclaimed or repurposed, and her selection frequently arises from what is available to her at any one time. A rope, a slab of stone, cast acrylic sheets or some reclaimed wood might form the starting point for a work, which develops through a process of problem-solving and negotiating with her chosen materials. Employed in eclectic combinations, they are transformed into sensual constructions of texture, colour, mass and shape.
Distinctions and disparities such as containment and concealment, darkness and light, visibility and invisibility are intrinsic to Wilding’s practice. In many of the sculptures, an object is confined within or beneath the larger structure of the work, partially concealed from the viewer and marking a border between interior and exterior. Other works explore duality by exposing the external and internal at the same time, as in her monocoque sculptures. Exploring balance, gravity and equilibrium, the monocoques are created by interlacing individual slats of wood or metal so as to become self-supporting. Here, individual elements appear to slot together solidly yet also seem in a state of mobility, as if their ability to remain stable is at the mercy of the viewer. Whether at a hand-held scale or larger than life-sized, all retain a suggestion of the monumental and therefore play on the viewer’s expectation, creating intimate and surprising encounters.
Although best known as a sculptor, drawing has increasingly become an important element of Wilding’s practice. Though the drawings—which are predominantly abstract, though several make reference to figurative forms—comprise a distinct aspect of her work, they bear similarities to the sculptures in how form, space and colour are employed.
Wilding is fascinated by the wider environmental setting of sculpture and with exploring how her objects might fit into the world. The relationship between the work and the audience is essential: her works repel the casual glance, instead requiring the viewer to engage intensely with them. Through their inherent physical expressiveness, the sculptures call on the viewer to observe, move around and take in the work from numerous angles, so that subject and object become entangled in a dynamic, tense relationship.
Wilding lives and works in London. She has taught at Brighton Polytechnic, Middlesex Polytechnic, Royal College of Art and Slade School of Fine Art. In 2018 she was appointed Eranda Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy Schools. Her work is held in public collections including Tate, London; Musée des Beaux Arts, Calais; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; British Museum, London; and Fonds régional d’art contemporain (Frac), Pays de la Loire.
Solo exhibitions by Wilding include De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2018); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2013, 2018); Duveen Galleries, Tate Britain, London (2013); Museum of Modern Art, New York (1987); and Serpentine Gallery, London (1985). Her public art commissions include Migrant at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, and Still Water, National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, and she has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield; Hayward Gallery, London; Tate Modern, London; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; and the 42nd Venice Biennale. Wilding was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1988 and 1992 and was awarded a Henry Moore Fellowship at The British School at Rome in 1989. She was elected a Royal Academician in 1999 and in 2019 was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to art.
By Viktoria Espelund
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Alison WildingX, 2018Patinated brass27 x 24 x 3.5 cm | 10 5/8 x 9 1/2 x 1 3/8 in
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Alison WildingMesmer, 2016Walnut, beech, teak, aluminium, tin and magnets172 x 245 x 56 cm | 67 3/4 x 96 1/2 x 22 1/8 in
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Alison WildingSolenoid, 2015Iranian string, wax, forged iron and wire14.5 x 22.5 x 13.5 cm | 5 3/4 x 8 7/8 x 5 1/3 in
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Alison WildingTraaacks, 2015Brass and pear wood24 x 14 x 22 cm | 9 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 8 5/8 in
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Alison WildingBaby Shimmy, 2014Mirrored stainless steel, semi-precious beads on cast concrete base26.5 x 63.5 x 32 cm | 10 3/8 x 25 x 12 5/8 in
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Alison WildingBadapples, 2014Bronze; each cast in the edition variable7 x 11 x 6 cm | 2 3/4 x 4 3/8 x 2 3/8 in
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Alison Wilding
Echo 15 Mar - 13 Apr 1996'Alison Wilding: Echo' at Karsten Schubert, London. 15 March–13 April 1996.Read more -
Summer Group Show
11 Aug - 9 Sep 1995'Summer Group Show' at Karsten Schubert, London. 11 August–9 September 1995.Read more -
Alison Wilding
New Sculptures and a Portfolio of Four Etchings 20 Jan - 18 Feb 1995'Alison Wilding: New Sculptures and a Portfolio of Four Etchings' at Karsten Schubert, London. 20 January–18 February 1995.Read more -
Five Works
27 May - 26 Jun 1993'Five Works: Keith Coventry, Michael Landy, Bridget Riley, Rachel Whiteread, Alison Wilding' at Karsten Schubert, London. 27 May–26 June 1993.Read more
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Alison Wilding at the The Whitworth, Manchester
Solo Exhibition April 13, 2018Alison Wilding at The Whitworth, Manchester, 16 Feb- 12 August, 2018Read more -
Review: Alison Wilding at the Whitworth, Manchester
The Telegraph: Mark Hudson February 16, 2018Mark Hudson writes for the Telegraph reviewing Alison Wilding's work in an exhibtion spanning the past 20 years of the artists career at the Whitworth...Read more -
Alison Wilding in 'Women To Watch' UK: Metal
Phillips, Berkeley Square, London November 21, 2017Alison Wilding, 'Displace', 1990. Copyright Alison Wilding, 2017. All rights reserved. The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington is the only museum...Read more -
Alison Wilding at Leeds Art Gallery
Re-opening October 11, 2017Alison Wilding, LeedsRead more