Alison Critchlow is an abstract landscape painter based in Cumbria, UK. She splits her time between studio practice and educational work- talks, collaborative projects and exhibitions. In 2021 she was awarded an Arts Council England grant, which funded a period of research and development focused on the work of Romanian, American artist Hedda Sterne. This period of creative exploration opened up all sorts of new possibilities in the studio. In 2022 she was the recipient of an Oppenheim John Downes Trust Award and in 2024 she was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize.
Informed by sensory experience and the ‘mind’s eye’ Alison’s paintings move happily between representation and abstraction. She is interested in perception and the interplay between internal and external landscape. The process of painting and the close-up ‘language of paint’ is central to her approach, using the texture, weight and pace of marks as a type of vocabulary.
Alison trained at Falmouth School of Art, Cornwall, and completed three years postgraduate study with Turps Art School, in London. She has spent time painting in some wild and remote locations, often visiting the Outer Hebrides and made a trip to Arctic Greenland in 2010. She took up a residency at Cill Rialaig, Ireland in 2023 and was artist in residence on the Isle of Iona in February 2017. She has exhibited widely throughout Britain, her most recent solo exhibitions have been ‘Suspended On Air’ at Gallagher & Turner, Newcastle (2025) and ‘On The Wild Side’ at the Old Courthouse, Shap (2024). Other exhibitions include: Bay Arts, Cardiff; Thames Side Studios, London, The Yorkshire Artspace: ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, University of Cambridge, Gracefield Arts Centre, Fairfield Mill, Brantwood, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, Manchester Art Show, Bianco Nero and Penwith Gallery, St Ives. Her work is in several collections in the UK and abroad. Alison has worked closely with Wordsworth Grasmere on several projects, in particular their ‘Weather Words’ and ‘Poetry and Paint’ projects. She spent two years learning from Wordsworth’s creative process and ideas. Drawing from his manuscripts and painting in Dove Cottage garden by day and at night, exploring the underlying rhythms of that place. This time has had a profound effect on her work and underpins her ongoing fascination with creative practice.
Alison sometimes teaches workshops and gives talks, recently presenting her work at ‘Pearls II Painting Symposium’ at Birley Studios in Preston, guest lecturer at University of Cumbria and teaching short ‘Poetry & Paint’ courses at Higham Hall. Other talks and teaching have been for Wordsworth Grasmere, U3A , the Eden Project, a collaborative public commission for Cumberland Council working with members of Cumbria Deaf Association. At the start of 2020 Alison ran a big mural project with a group of men in prison. The art project at HMP Haverigg was spread over three months and involved art history, discussion and debate as well as practical painting skills. It was an uplifting project which saw one of the cell blocks transformed as part of the education programme at the jail.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss collaborative/research projects, exhibitions or to enquire about any of the paintings.