AL STRANGEWAYS: Artist’s Statement
Born in the UK in 1967, Al is a self-taught artist who lives in Alice Springs and whose work has been seen in solo and group exhibitions in the Northern Territory and is held in private and public collections in Australia and overseas. She paints in oils: portraits, landscapes and experimental work.
‘I’m fascinated by the identity of things, and interested in how things express this, or aspects of this. My paintings are an attempt to represent a moment of glimpsing or catching what poet GM Hopkins calls the ‘inscape’ of the thing, be it a cloud, a place or a person. I enjoy exploring the way light works to shape and convey inscape. The quality of the light in Australia still astonishes me after years here.’
Her portrait commissions range in price from $900 to $3000, depending on size, number of subjects and complexity of composition. She prefers to work from a minimum of one or two life sittings of about 90 minutes each.
Awards
2007 People’s Choice Award, Advocate Art Award, Alice Springs
2008 ‘Faces’ Section Award, Advocate Art Award, Alice Springs
2008 Acquisition Award, Portrait of a Senior Territorian Art Award, Darwin
2009 People’s Choice Award, Portrait of a Senior Territorian Art Award, Darwin
2010 Selected for exhibition in The Alice Prize, Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs
2010 Acquisition Award, Portrait of a Senior Territorian Art Award, Darwin