Alison Smith

Alison Smith uses portraiture as a vehicle to explore the complexities and ambiguities of the human face. With extensive research into themes of identity and face politics she works from personal experience, mediated images, and directly from life. In this work Alison uses her own experience as an adopted person to investigate and challenge perceptions surrounding the diversity of human experiences of identity.

Her process is a vital and generative space for exploration, giving Alison the ability to dismantle the forms of the face, sometimes to a point almost beyond recognition of an individual. Her decision to eliminate colour was considered, not only for aesthetics but for a psychosocial state. For Alison multiple strategies of build a complex work, giving the viewer space to consider how we present our own faces to the world, and how it feels to be human.