The execution of Alison Berry’s paintings is like a high-wire performance, requiring a faith in herself and the brush. After dancing about in the studio beforehand readying herself, she creates enigmatic twisting ribbon-like forms caught in space or strange flattened lands, which reflect Berry’s interest in the world we cannot see, at the frontier of human comprehension. The shapes are potentially vast in scale, such as flows of dark energy traversing our universe or alien landscapes, but they may equally reflect the vibrations emanating from a single pluck of a violin string, the movement of a Higgs Boson particle or the small and fleeting existence of a human thought.
Working with chromatic black oil paint on aluminium dibond, or more recently resin, simple shapes are instinctively developed, stretched, smeared or wiped away in paint. There is a cool greenness where the paint is thinnest and a pleasing warmth in the solid darkest areas. Alison paints on beautifully smooth surfaces, but also exacting ones, showing every variation in pressure and quiver of the brush, but this ensures a human presence in what could otherwise be clinical work. The handling of the paint, provides a grounding in the here and now, held on the cusp of perceiving image and painted surface, providing a space to quietly ponder on the invisible universal building blocks of form.
CV
Born Chatham, Kent
Lives and works in Southeast England
Education
2023-25 TURPS Hastings Off-Site Programme
2022-23 TURPS Correspondence Course
2013 Fine Art Practice Development postgraduate course, K College Tonbridge, Kent
2011 Fine Art BA (Hons), First Class, University of Greenwich, London
1989 Geography BSc (Hons), Royal Holloway, London University
Solo Exhibitions
2021 Car Parks & Fairy Rings, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks
2015 Smell the Porridge, The Old Police Station, Deptford, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Split 3, Candid Arts Trust, Angel, London
2025 Time to Time, Safehouse, Peckham, London
2024 Layers, Downstairs, Brixton
2024 Afterglow, Hastings Arts Forum, Hastings
2024 Lick, Safehouse, Peckham, London
2023 Play, The Stone Space, London
2023 Do Not Swallow, Safehouse, Peckham, London
2023 FIBRES, Air Gallery, Altrincham, Manchester
2023 Mud, for you, TURPS CC show, Fitzrovia Gallery, London
2022 Painting Open, no format gallery, London
2022 South East Open Studios, Hartfield, East Sussex
2019-23 Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum Open, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks, Kent
2019 Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum Celebrates, The Old Cello Factory, London
2018 Trees of Remembrance, Kaleidoscope Gallery Sevenoaks with Stag Sevenoaks
2018 The Paradox of War, Tonbridge Castle, Kent
2018 Nothing Endures but Change, St John’s Church, Waterloo, London. Curated by The London Group
2018 Embracing the Underdog, Chinatown, London. Curated by The London Group
2018 Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum Open, Kaleidoscope Gallery, selected by ARTHOUSE 1
2017 Shoreham Sculpture Trail. Curated by The London Group
2016 Bad Behaviour Open, Brixton East, London
2015 Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum Open, Kaleidoscope Gallery, selected by Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent
2015 Oddities and Nonsense, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks, Kent
2015 The Poor Door, A-side B-side Gallery, Amhurst Terrace, London
2015 ZeitgieistArtProjects Summer Exhibition, Goodwood Road, London
2015 Paper Works, Hundred Years Gallery, Pearson Street, London
2014 Red Xmas, Studio 1.1 Gallery, 57a Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London
2014 Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum Open, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks, Kent
2014 A Fine Line, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks, Kent
2013 Dialogue, Neurophysiology Dept, Kings College Hospital, London
2012 Curiously Connected, The Coningsby Gallery, Tottenham Street, London
2012 Applied Imagination, 111 Great Titchfield Street, London
Selected Projects, Events and Talks
2021/22 Catalogue cover – Coming On. Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum Open
2022 Talk – Cubism – Creating the Symbolic, Tunbridge Wells Art Society, Tunbridge Wells, Kent
2021 Talk – Car Parks & Fairy Rings – Abstraction, Heterotopia and the Contemporary Sublime, Kaleidoscope Gallery Sevenoaks, Kent
2019 Project – Celebratory Giant Film Strip, Stag Wall, Stage Cinema, Sevenoaks, Kent
2019 Event – Paint Like Turner Fundraiser, Hartfield Village Hall, East Sussex
2017, 2019 & 2023 Event – Art for All, St Mary’s Church, Hartfield, East Sussex
2015 & 2016 Event – The Big Draw, St Mary’s Church, Hartfield, East Sussex
2015 Project – A Slice of Eggpie Lane – Poems of a delicate essence and delight, nonsense poetry book. Illustration, editing and publishing.
2015 Talk – The Importance of Being Flippant, Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum, Kent
2014/15 Project – Paper Works, Collaborative Project sponsored by a-n
Alison Berry 