Alison O’Neill is an artist working with video. Her videos employ a cut and paste sensibility layering still and moving images on top of and inside of one another. O’Neill is interested in what the screen means and how this space can be built up or hollowed out in order to represent other things. Her work is an exploration of the female imaginary and is informed by women’s writing, feminist theory and her own experiences.
Motherhood remains a longstanding interest in O’Neill’s work and informs both how she makes the work and its subject matter. She is interested in how perceptions of herself were altered and distorted by motherhood, particularly young motherhood, and how her relationships to others, places and sites of power were affected by this. More recent work considers landscape and place but retains the same preoccupation with distorted and altered subjectivities.
O’Neill studied Fine Art at Falmouth and has a Masters in Feminist Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts from the University of Leeds where she studied under the feminist theorist and art historian Griselda Pollock. Recent screenings include Open Out at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2019), The Birth Rites Collection Shortlist Screening at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester (2018), The Art of Surrender at The Stills Centre for Photography, Edinburgh (2018) and Quickening at The Nightingale Cinema, Chicago (2017).
Education
PGCE Art and Design, University of Cambridge
MA Feminist Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts, University of Leeds
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Falmouth College of Arts
Selected Recent Exhibitions and Screenings
2019 Acropolis Remix, The Wrong Biennale
2019 Home, Gallery at Home, Usk, Wales
2019 Time to Think, Pil'ours festival, France
2019 Open Out, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
2018 Oh MotHER, Custom House Leith, Edinburgh
2018 The Art of Surrender: Motherhood and Moving Image, Stills Centre for Photography, Edinburgh
2018 The Art of Relation, Cambridge Artworks, Cambridge
2018 Birth Rites Collection Prize Shortlist Screening, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
2018 Birth Rites Collection Prize Shortlist Screening, Kings College, London
2017 Quickening, Curated by Extended Practice, Nightingale Cinema, Chicago
2017 Lass Struggle at FiLiA Conference, Institute of Education, London (Co-curator)
2017 Sketch Open Drawing Prize (shortlist exhibition), Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster
2017 Sketch Open Drawing Prize (shortlist exhibition), Plymouth College of Arts, Plymouth
2017 Nasty Women London, The Black and White Building, London
2017 Interval, The Pepperpot, Godalming
2017 Sketch Open Drawing Prize (shortlist exhibition), Black Swan Arts, Frome
2017 Sketch Open Drawing Prize (shortlist exhibition), Rabley Drawing Centre, Marlborough
2017 Nasty Women Cambridge, Cambridge Artworks, Cambridge
2017 Desperate Artwives 5th Edition, Granby Space, London
2016 Brood Film Festival, Exeter Phoenix
2016 Object, Object, Alison Richard’s Building, University of Cambridge
2015 Project AfterBirth, White Moose Gallery, Devon
2015 ProCreate Project Launch, Women's Art Library, Goldsmiths, University of London
2015 Motherhood and Creative Practice: Maternal Structures in Creative Work, LSBU (Screening)
2015 One For Sorrow, Arts Centre Gallery, North Hertfordshire College
2015 Birth Rites Collection Competition shortlisted artworks - MediaCityUK, Salford
2014 Residents Artists Exhibition, Arts Centre Gallery, North Hertfordshire College, Hitchin
2014 Intervention at The Contents of an Unquiet Mind, Remade Heaven, Cambridge
2013 Postcards from Cambridge, Intervention at various locations around Cambridge
2012 We did not dream, Open Studio, Work completed on Cambridge School of Art Residency
2011 Follow the Fellow, Changing Spaces, Regent Street, Cambridge
Residencies/Awards/ Affiliations
2019-2020 Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust Award
2019-2020 a-n Professional Development Mentoring Bursary
2018 Digital Artist Residency
2018 Everyday Project: an online collaboration with artist Tessa Windt
2017 Shortlisted for Birth Rites Collection Competition 2017
2017 Shortlisted for Sketch Open Drawing Prize 2017
2016-2018 Associate Artist at DIEP (Digital Institute for Early Parenthood)
2015 Shortlisted for Birth Rites Collection Competition
2014-2015 AA2A Artist in Residence, Arts Centre, North Hertfordshire College
2011-2012 AA2A Artist in Residence at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University
Publications/ Conference Papers
2019 Book Chapter: O'Neill A and Paul J, One for Sorrow: the collaborative work of mother and not-yet-mother in The Maternal in Creative Work: Intergenerational Discussions on Motherhood and Art Ed. Elena Marchevska and Valerie Walkerdine
2016 Art History and the Objectification of Women, Objectification and Gendered Violence Symposium, Crassh, University of Cambridge
2015 Imaginary Children, Motherhood and Creative Practice: Maternal Structures in Creative Work, LSBU