If we think of collage as a language of disparate, often delicate elements coming together in taut and balanced interactions, then Alice Peillon has achieved over time no small degree of mastery of its vocabulary and grammar. And if we can agree that a language at its most effective can express both the banal and the profound in a single breath, then we can see evidence in Alice’s work of the artist making the same demands of her medium; collage.
Whilst not precisely minimal, Alice’s collages do manage to express a certain expansiveness which hints at things unsaid within the measurements of the surface. This sense of a sparsely occupied space is all the more surprising on such a small scale. Alice’s experience as a painter contributes to the life of these works. Where paint or ink has been applied in her collages it is like the hint of a larger gesture - one which we can imagine continuing beyond the edges of the artwork. Painted marks are so reduced in these works that, where they appear, brushstrokes could be thought of as potential rather than fully formed. Pigment holds a subtle but powerful presence over these delicate surfaces, like the implied consequence of an unrealized act.
Through her unhurried experiments with paper, ink, fragments of photographic images, and painted gestures Alice is adding to the depth of findings by other exponents of the medium, artists such as Anne Ryan and Lyubov Popova.
Text by Robbie O’Halloran
Web: theglazelondon.com | Twitter: @theglazelondon | Instagram: @theglazelondon
Education:
2006 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London
2005 Post-Graduate Diploma Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London
2000 BA Fine Art Painting, National College of Art and Design, Dublin
Solo Exhibitions:
2013 Myriad, studio 1.1, London
2011 Constellation, Rua Red, Dublin
2003 Draíocht, Blanchardstown, Dublin, Ireland
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2023
This Year’s Model part III, Studio 1.1, London
Royal Cambrian Academy Annual Open Exhibition, Conwy, Wales
2022
Seeing Feeling Forgetting, APT Gallery, London
Seedbomb, Terrace Gallery, London
Sonic Spring, Filly Brook, London
2021
A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary
2020
Wells Art Contemporary
2019
Material Indifference, APT Gallery, London
2018
Damn the Darkening Days, Pictorem Gallery, London
Parklife, Winns Gallery London
2014
East London Painting Prize, London
ART/Converters!, Studio 1.1 London
2013
On Site, Unit 3 Projects, London
2012
Water Cure, Pie Factory, Margate
2011
Candy Mountains, Arbeit, London
BAT Pack II, Mile End Art Pavilion, London
Drawn Together, Jeannie Avent Gallery, London
2010
A Night - there lay the Days between, 242 Gallery, London
Summer Exhibition 2010, Rua Red, Dublin
Artsdepot Open 2010, Artsdepot, London
Features IV, Fowle Hall, Kent
BAT Pack - Bow Arts Trust Live/Work Show 2010, Mile End Art Pavilion, London
Worcester Open 2010, Contemporary Art, PITT Gallery, Worcester
2009
Open Submission, Dunamaise Arts Centre, Co.Laois, Ireland
P1 Exhibition, Bow Arts Trust, London
2008
Confessions of a Tiger, Brick Lane Gallery, London
Eigse Open Selection, Carlow Arts Festival, Ireland
Unnatural Histories, The Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust, London
Lunacy (on the Leap Year), Red Velvet Curtain Club, Whitechapel Gallery, London
2007
Thirty Two Thousand Years Later: Painting at Pallas Contemporary Projects, Dublin
2006
7 Irish Artists, Loads of Fun Studios, Baltimore, USA
Halcyon Days, Tannery Arts, London
The Nationwide Mercury Prize Art Exhibition 2006, The Gallery at The Hospital, London
House Show, 211 Richmond Road, London
2004
Wellworth Studios Exhibition, London
Something Above the Sofa, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
The 174th Annual Exhibition, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin
2003
50/50, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
Flix, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
Group Show, Sligo Art Gallery, Co.Sligo, Ireland
Summer Exhibition, Lead White Gallery, Dublin.
The 173rd Annual Exhibition, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin
2002
Six – New Irish Painting, Orchard Gallery, Derry, Northern Ireland.
Painted, Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co.Mayo, Ireland.
The 172nd Annual Exhibition, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin
2001
Quadrant 2001 – The Young Contemporaries, LSAD, Limerick, Ireland.
Group Six, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin.
EV+A, Limerick City Hall, Co.Limerick, Ireland
Awards / Residencies:
2014 Longlisted for Paint Like You Mean It exhibition
2010 Winner, Rua Red Artist Award
2008 Bow Arts Trust Live/Work Scheme
2007 Shortlisted for Celeste Art Prize, London
2006 Finalist, The Nationwide Mercury Prize Art Exhibition 2006, London
2004 The Arts Council of Ireland, Professional Development and Training, Strand 1 Award
2002 Laedemoen Kunstnerverksteder (LVK) residency, Trondheim, Norway
Shortlisted for Hennessy Craig Scholarship, (RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin)
Collections:
Office of Public Works, Dublin
Axa Collection of Irish Art
Ernst & Young (London)
Private Collections