ARTIST born 1984, London
Alice McCabe was raised in the outback and moved to London when she was six. Deeply inspired by a show of Arthur Boyd’s work at Australia House in 1996, she realised that she wanted to be a painter.
She currently lives and works in Zurich, hoping to compile a response to the arts events which took place here at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916. SEE BLOG
2005 - 2008: University of Brighton Fine Art Painting (BA Hons) First Class
2003 - 2004: Foundation Course at Chelsea College of Art and Design
PERFORMANCE
.•14th May 2011: ENGLISH DADA BREAKFAST “Englischer Morgen mit Dada gepfeffert” at Station21 Art Platform, Zurich. Come fry it up and aid in vital dada research: why dada never made it to England! Real sausage and bacon provided alongside rewarding comedy clips to aid digestion.
.•29th April 2011 (ROYAL WEDDING DATE): "The THERE-THERE School of English Dada” VARIETY ACT at The Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich It is the Friday night (new bank holiday in U.K,) the unemployed stop working, Prince William marries a commoner, the Queen is "delighted," the bride wears the ring of the Prince's dead mother. DADA Siegt!
.•5th March 2011 : “LANGUAGE egaL” PERFORMANCE for “ZEIG! Statt!” Offene Bühne im Foyer des Jungen Theater, Basel An exploration of misunderstanding within language.
.•16th December 2010 : “I’m a Real Professional” PERFORMANCE at Dunkelholzli Studios, Zurich An interactive Performance, tackling "professionalism," The nature of Private Views as Perverse Viewings and opening up of an alter-ego advent calender.
COMPETITIONS, AWARDS and RESIDENCIES
•Buitenwerkplaats, outskirts of Amsterdam, August 2011: Joint residency with Ed Scott, culminating in an exhibition. We will be combining his psycho-geometric architecture plans and my painted recollections of spaces and people. By displaying our work in a barn like interior on site, we hope to further alter the physical reality of space and create a bewildering / dislocated snatch of modern art.
•Wort und Wirkung Stipendium, Zurich, March and April 2011: Created the “THERE THERE School of English dada” to work out why dada never moved to England and whether workshops run in English language, comedy, heritage and history can shed any light on the matter. Combining research and ridicule to delight the public.
•Saatchi Gallery SHOWDOWN Round Winner and Runner- Up Finalist, September 2010: Painting “Were I to Ice Skate” displayed on the “Showdown Wall” in the Saatchi Gallery, London.
.•CREEKSIDE OPEN COMPETITION June 2009: Painting “Boy who Cried Wolf in Australia” was shown as part of an Exhibition curated by Mark Wallinger at APT Gallery, Deptford.
.•21st June 2009: Shortness At the Tate Modern (A very short conference and a very long dinner): Stop Animation ‘Table Dance’ was screened at the Tate Dinner as part of a series of short attractions curated by Ricarda Vidal.
GROUP SHOWS
.•May till July 2011: Irina Botea feat. WeAreTheArtists (Open photo submissions) at Kunsthalle Winterthur then K3 in Zurich.
.•January 2010: Michael Landy’s Art Bin at South London Gallery.
.•November 2009: QUEST FOR PARADISE ARTS “Addressing the Boredom” Pop-Up Gallery show, 54 West Hill, Wandsworth.
.•January 2009: ‘Small Show’ First Exhibition in artist led space ‘Studio One’ at Wandsworth Art Village, Wandsworth.
.•May 2008: The University of Brighton Fine Art Painting Degree Show. NOMINATED for a student award for outstanding artistic achievement chosen by The University of Nagoya.•
.•March 2008: Animation ‘Table Dance’ screened at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm.
SOLO SHOWS
.•June 2010 - March 2011: ‘Birdom’ Series of pipe-cleaner birds, temporary collection of the RSPB, displayed in the Yan, Grizedale Sculpture Park.
.•April 2009: ‘This is Belgium.’ Show of artist’s memorabilia and memories displayed in Studio One, Wandsworth Art Village inspired by a WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) trip to Belgium.
.•Summer 2003: ‘Peri-Glacial’ exhibition (A series of photos created after a trip to Iceland) in ‘The Printworks Gallery’, Blake Mews, Kew.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I combine ephemera and social sourcing (rambling, finding and talking to people), pipe-cleaner work and painting to form a sort of ‘Rubbish Anthropology’ or series of ‘Artist imposed impressions’. Using these methods I assemble information about people and places (often imagined), which unwittingly reflect my own mood.
The process is intuitive: a love of paint and belief that every scrap of information read, every single thing seen and paper picked up will no doubt have an importance and an influence in the work.
Painting is continuously opening up to me, to reveal the next layer of intricacy.
I am currently working through a series of slow choices to leave the viewer with the impression of looking (familiarly) at a very rich, layered and slightly obscured scenario, almost as if at someone else’s memories.
