Alyson Minkley (1968) is a British/American social sculptor who uses dialogue, co-creation, and embodiment to question socio-cultural and neuro-norms. Recurring themes explore the dimensionality of personal space and inter-relationships between human emotion and didactic systems, often presented with a playful misappropriation of formal etiquette.
Minkley juxtaposes traditional & contemporary media, with particular focus on tensions between materiality/immateriality in the context of climate catastrophe. Selection of slow-process materials, like ceramics, embroidery, or multi-channel video editing, facilitates embodiment of an extended conceptual thinking process within the making. She likes interdisciplinary collaboration with social scientists and performance/digital creatives and often develops works co-creatively with audiences.
Alyson returned to practice studying MA Fine Art at Bath Spa, completing in 2021 with distinction, after a 20-year hiatus, parenting, and working full-time in education. Now seeking an alternative solidarity as antithesis to systemic scrutiny of the individual, engendering conversation across disparate groups is a critical aspect of her methodology. This is most recently evident in the ArtsCouncil-funded tour of Synapse with Social Scaffolding Art Collective which engages and co-creatively connects a cumulative audience of thousands across six venues regionally in the Southwest.
In the last year, Alyson has undertaken a socially engaged project with Arts & Culture for staff at Weston-Super-Mare hospital, co-created a commission for Forest of Imagination in a local school, and curated/collaborated on the award-winning arts & health Project Becomings in Bristol with the Southmead Project. Datafield (2020) was long-listed for UK New Artist 2022 and is currently exhibited in the RWA Open 2023. Alyson has recently been long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2024.
2024 · Synapse & Haptic Traces
Aesthetica Art Prize · Yorkshire Museum · long-listed
2023 · Datafield
RWA Open · Bristol · selected
2022-3 · Synapse
Social Scaffolding Tour · Taunton · Shepton Mallet · Weston super Mare · Gloucester · Bristol · Trowbridge · Swindon ·
Arts Council funded
2022 · Strange Fruit, Body Bags & Haptic Traces Series
Black Swan Open · Frome · highly commended
2022 · Strange Fruit, Weight & Body As Evidence
Gallery at the Station · Frome · invited
2022 · Datafield
Glitch FAB22 · Bath · selected
2021 · Haptic Traces Exposed
Bath Open · 44AD · Bath · 1st prize
2021 · Sink or Swim, Swinging the Lead & All at Sea
Porthleven Arts Festival · Cornwall · invited
2021 · Three Sheets to the Wind
RSMA · Mall Galleries · London · selected
2021 · Haptic Traces Together Apart
Emerge Showcase · Bath Spa University · residency
2021 · Datafield
Wiltshire Film Festival · Salisbury · selected
2021 · Hanging Out
In the Meanwhile · Bath · selected
2021 · Haptic Traces
Pause: small stories · New Urban Orientations · online · selected
2021 · Human Murmuration
EXH06 Floorrmagazine · online · selected
2020 · Datafield
Visions of Science · The Edge · Bath · shortlisted
2020 · Haptic Traces
Happenings FAB20 · Bath · invited
2020 · Datafield & Whitewash
Centre of Gravity · Bristol · invited
2020 · Body of Work
The Art Cohort · Bath · solo
2020 · All at Sea
In the Offing · Porthleven Prize Exhibition · Cornwall · winner
2020 · Datafield & Human Murmuration
Bath Spa University · group
2020 · Cataloguing Anxiety Part 1 & 2
Materiality · 44AD Bath · invited
2019 · All at Sea
Porthleven Prize Exhibition · Bath Spa University · winner
2019 · Body of Work
St Marys Calne · Wiltshire · solo
2019 · Body As Evidence
RWA Open · Bristol · selected
2019 · Body As Evidence
Bath Open FAB19 · selected
2019 · Cataloguing Anxiety (Part 2)
RWA Sculpture Open · Bristol · selected
2018 · Flood Flags
RiV · Bath Quays & Bath University · commission
2018 · Hanging Out (1 in 8)
44AD Bath FAB18 · selected
2001 · Wind Thrones
CORAL Arts · Aston Rowant Nature Reserve · Buckinghamshire · commission
2000/1 · Wood between the Worlds
CORAL Arts · West Woods · Wiltshire · commission
2000 · Bellyful of Goldfish
MoMA · Oxford · solo
1999 · The Forest that Sailed Away
CORAL Arts · Minster Lovell · Oxfordshire · commission
1999 · Millennium Bugs
Radley College · Oxfordshire · commission
1994 · Tree Dancers
Little Wittenham Nature Reserve · Oxfordshire · commission
1994 · Fire Dance
Campus Festival · Devon · commission
1994 · Angels Amongst Us
Little Wittenham Nature Reserve · Oxfordshire · commission
Bedford Arts Centre · Buckinghamshire · commission
1994 · Waxing Moons
Stanley Dove Outdoor Sculpture · Oxfordshire · invited
1993 · Unfurl
EOS ensemble · St John Smith Square · London · commission
1993 · Angels Amongst Us
Oxford Artweeks · Trout Island Oxford · Arts Council funded
1993 · Take a leaf out of my book
Common Ground · City Centre · Oxford · commission
1992 · Rivers of the Moon
Frevd Arts Café · Oxford · residency
1992 · The Life Model Dreams
Sewell Gallery · Oxfordshire · solo
1991 · Open Window & The Choice is Yours
Oxford Art Society Open · MoMA Oxford · selected
1991 · Strange Fruit & Heavy Feather
CCA Galleries · Oxford · selected
1990 · Why do you continue to call me ostrich
when I strive so hard to be an angel?
Schadenfreude · Slaughterhouse Gallery · London · group
Video created as a presentation for my MA Fine Art Contextual Practice module at Bath Spa University 2020. The intention was to disrupt the traditional format and instead embody the mercurial methodology of my brain & thinking patterns in the physical experience of witnessing the talk about my practice.
The process of creating the presentation required that I deconstruct the multiple & often subliminal influences that exist in my artworks. However, in constructing the video, the existential practice of self-reflection became so all-consuming that the talk includes a critical analysis & deconstruction of self, like Jormungadr eating his tail.
