ALICE STRANGE.

An electrical engineering degree lead to working in the energy industry for twenty years.

Chance meetings with printmakers Thelma K Sykes & Eric Martin caused me to take Obi Wan Kanobi’s advice and rethink my life.  I bailed out of the corporate world soon after to study art history at the Open University and make stuff.

Tuition & guidance …

from many people has added screenprinting, collagraphy, digital printmaking, bookmaking, painting, mosaic & flax weaving to my toolbox.  Heartfelt thanks to Maureen Johnston & Simon Rutherford in Christchurch, Ian Gowdie & Alan Anderson in Oban, Gayle Robinson, Ros Lawless, Scott Campbell, Claire Forsyth, Stuart Duffin, Fiona Watson, Robert McSpadyen, Murray Robertson, Ciara Phillips and Jess Copsey at the Glasgow Print Studio, Claire McVinnie & Scott Hudson at the Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Studio, Bob Burridge in his Magic Studio and Petra Zehner at the Paris Collage Collective.

It’s not about the process.

The idea behind a work is more important to me than the medium.  I use whatever technique is at hand: relief printing, screen printing, monoprinting, collage (analogue & digital), cyanotype, paint, textile & assemblage.

Everything I use to make work is in my life.  It’s a matter of what I come across and what I pay attention to: art, science, music, literature, politics, the earth, the sea, the sky, people, memories, the big questions … I process the input by making stuff, using whatever medium is on hand – relief printing, screen printing, collage (analogue & digital), cyanotype, paint, textile & assemblage.

These are a few of my favourite things …

Picasso’s constant experimentation – Duchamp and the many conceptual & performance artists who redefined art, with humour  & intelligence – Shiko Munakata’s speed & vitality – Goya’s darkness – Beryl Cook’s lightness – the other-worldliness of Byzantine icons – the style & dissolute lifestyle of Modigliani – Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present – Gainsborough’s Mrs Siddons – Robert Motherwell – the exuberance of Gaudi’s Parc Guell and Josie Martin’s Akaroa garden – the search for knowledge: physics, astronomy, biology, oceanography, philosophy – language: poetry, literature, mathematics – Scotland, New Zealand, the oceans  between them and the sky above them – feats of engineering: standing stone circles, lighthouses, spacecraft, computers …

And music.

Queen, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, Yes, Sparks, Brian Eno, Dylan, KT Tunstall, Robert Plant, U2, Wings, Dolly Parton, Fleetwood Mac, the Boomtown Rats, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Peter Gabriel, Tom Waits, Dead Can Dance, the Proclaimers, the Waterboys, Shooglenifty, Eddi Reader, Chris Rea, Sheryl Crow, Barenaked Ladies, Nine Inch Nails, Glasvegas, Laura Mvula, Lila Downs, Jolie Holland, Lana Del Ray, Thea Gilmore, Mozart, No-No Boy, Raye, Cindy Lee,  …

And I enjoy silly cat videos.