British artist Alison McKenna (UK, 1970), who works in a variety of media including painting, film, photography and collage. Her interests encompass protest, alchemy, spiritual evolution and sites of pilgrimage and gathering.

This installation is a survey of ideas that have spanned a twelve year period since 2012 and reflect a celebratory response to restrictive societal structures.

McKenna uses photography and drawing on site, for later exploration in the studio. Research visits for this body of work were made to Crete and Delphi, Greenham Common, Glastonbury Tor, Waun Mawn in Wales, Ardmore in Ireland and Croydon Country Park Nature Reserve. The resultant works were then created and offered as acts of resistance and transcendence Moon Shrines, Water Springs and Sacred Flares includes paintings on wood and paper, a new video work and and an installation of around twenty five smaller works on paper called ‘I Am Because You Are’ (2024).

Paintings are rendered in smooth emulsion, using soft pinks, mauves, emerald green, deep reds of the earth and vibrant yellows, combined in elegant, rhythmic passages through which the colour becomes a medicine.

The video work is entitled ‘Sun Stands Still’ 2016/2024 (19min HD video). This film choreographs a unique experience in place, movement, and sound within the mystical landscape of Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, documenting a female-only evocation to the Sun on the occasion of the Winter Solstice.

The installation work ‘I Am Because You Are’ (2024) consists of around twenty five of the artist’s own photographs taken at protests, places and gatherings combined with research materials. Many of these photographic materials have interventions with paint, ink and tape.