Alison Woolacott Fine Artist

https://www.surfacegallery.org/dotdot-dash-gallery

'Palingenesis' has been crafted from a section of wood cladding discarded during the construction of the new chemistry building (GSK CNL) at The University of Nottingham in 2016. Encased within the structure, mutated, delicate specimens collected from the charred remains of the first build, are preserved, standing proudly as individual souvenirs to represent each week leading up to the devastating fire.

Last minute planning for my video room at home before the final installation for the Degree Show.

T03689 The Cards 1972 Green felt-tip pen on commercial postcards, 81 cards framed in sets of 3, each card 3 1/2 × 5 1/2 (88 × 140) Each card inscribed by the artist with the name of a county in England, Scotland or Wales, b.r. or b.l.

I travelled on a bike from London down to Cornwall and back. The rest I did in an old Commer bus. 'The Spring Recordings' themselves are recordings of nothing. Air, water, a bird can be heard occasionally, but no machinery. It could be anywhere in England. They're as abstract as you can get, and my intention was that you just don't play them. You just have a line of cassettes in the gallery. The Tate insisted on playing it recently. There's a big show of conceptual art in April and they’ll be showing it again. But I don't want it heard, I just want it seen. In those days that's how I thought. These days people are almost more difficult with it than they were in the old days.

The found object has been the catalyst for my recent art practice. Through an investigation into the history of each object, new conceptual pieces evolve over a period of time.

'The found object, then, is almost always a symbol: something that has a weightier significance than its ordinary appearance seems to warrant; something that acts as a sign if only it can be decoded. In artist Mike Nelson’s case, this is quite literally so. In a market in London he found himself drawn to a beaten-up road sign that reminded him of a sculpture by John Chamberlain. He bought it for a fiver, and then wondered where on earth was “Craco” – the place it had once pointed to. It turned out that it was a sign to nowhere; a medieval hilltown in Basilicata, southern Italy, that has been empty since the 1980s, evacuated by an already depleted population after a series of floods, landslides and earthquakes. “It set me thinking: maybe it’s my destiny in some way,” he says. Nelson often creates haunted, dystopian installations in places that seem to have been recently abandoned by their inhabitants. In a sense, he could have invented Craco. But Craco came looking for him.'

BALTIC presents a survey exhibition and a major new commission by the Dutch artist and filmmaker Fiona Tan. Born in 1966 in Pekan Baru, Indonesia, Tan works within the contested territory of representation: how we represent ourselves and the mechanisms that determine how we interpret the representation of others.

My collection of historical data, memories & correspondence relating to the purchase of the van are carefully preserved in display cabinets.

Here, my pieces 'Comfort Break' 2015 & 'Flow' 2015 are displayed together due to restricted studio space. For the Degree Show, these works will occupy their own spaces.

'Studio Space' 2015. Setting up a test installation for assessment before the Degree Show.

In stark comparison to Nauman's installation, my latest work 'Studio Space' becomes less inviting to enter due to the restricted space.  Both installations require the viewers to physically engage with the work by travelling through the spaces, their perceptions altering at each manoeuvre.

"...... The growth of mould on the bread illustrates the life-death-life cycle literally: as one substance decays, another organism is able to take life......"

Looking at my video room installation plan, longer VGA m-m are required.