Alison Chapman-Andrews
Dunloe Coach House Dunlow Lane St. Michael Barbados , West Indies.Tel 246 429 4897
cel : 822 5726
Artist in her studio. Photographer
Artist Statement
"Although trained in English art schools, my" art vocabulary" was developed in the West Indian landscape. I drew in Barbados and Guyana where the rural environment became my inspiration and my subject. As the subject was familiar and not "difficult", I was free to pursue my own interpretations and impose my ideas, which have changed through many phases.
When I arrived in Barbados 40 years ago, I saw reminders of England in cultivated cane fields and plantation houses beneath avenues of royal palms. This interest changed to exploring the gullies, formed by collapses of caves in a limestone landscape. I showed the moon with its energy animating masculine trunks. The moon positions in the composition became like the final square in a board game.
The focus of my painting and my life has narrowed and simplified lately. Current works are often single trees, or plants. A Christmas palm in my garden is often seen up close, drawn from observation, and records changes in light or growth.
Being a full time teacher meant never having to make a living from my art, so I enjoy the luxury of making art for myself. I still believe that the next painting produced will be the one to succeed totally. This continual search for a successful personal outcome is what it seems to be about. All I can do is keep making, composing, working. Fortunately each painting, magically, seems to carry within it the germ of the next.
The space created ,when making art, is the only place where the relentlessness of time passing seems to slow down."
ACA
Chronology
1942 Born Hertford, England.. Alison Armstrong
1968 Married Paul Chapman-Andrews (land surveyor)
1971 Resident of Barbados , 1980 Citizen
1985 Married Stanley Greaves (Guyanese painter )
Art Studies
1959-63 Walthamstow School of Art , S.W.E.T.C. London E.17. studied printmaking, sculpture, drawing, mural painting, art history.
1963-66 Royal College of Art, Painting School, South Kensington, London . awarded A.R.C.A .in Painting
Teaching Experience
In England;
1967-68 Lecturer in drawing, College of Art and Industrial Design, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
1968-69 Art teacher, Holloway Boys School, London.
In Barbados:
1971 - 88 Full time art teacher. The St Michaels School, Barbados.
Awards
1996 Part of the gold medal winning Barbadian submission. Santo Domingo Bieninal
1985 & 86 Purchase awards: Art Collection Foundation (Barbados)
2006 Lifetime Achievement Award
2007 Governors Award, Crop Over Visual Arts.
Solo Exhibitions
10 in Barbados, including:
1988 "In Retrospect", Queens Park Gallery, Bridgetown, Barbados
1997 "Sugar Hill Gully ", Queens Park, Bds
1999 "Sugar Hill Gully 2" Art Foundry West, Bds.
2000 "In the Land ", Barbados Gallery of Art., Bds.
2000 "Watercolours and Prints" Coach House , Bds.
2003 'Palms" Zemicon Gallery, Bds.
2006 Lifetime Achievement Award Show, Grande Salle, Central Bank. Bds.
2009 "Robes of Power". Zemicon Gallery, Bridgetown, Bds.
Selected Group Shows
1994 Fourth Biennial, Quenca, Ecuador
1992 94 96 Caribbean and Central American Biennial of Painting, Santo Domingo
1996, "Barbadian Art" The Gallery, 28 Cork St. London.
1998, 2000. "Imagers 21" prints at Art Foundry , & Queens Park, Bds.
2001 "Between Lines", Cariforo Travelling Show, Caribbean "Barbadiana 2" Gallery de L'Image, Paris
2002 Collage and Coincidence, Queens Park with Nick Whittle
2003 Carifesta, Suriname. 2006 Carifesta, Trinidad
2004 Barbadiana3 Paris, Brussels, Ottawa, Montreal and 2005 Queens Park, Bds.
2004 Figure Show Caribbean Gallery of Art Speightsown, Bds.
2005 Barbadiana 4 Paris, Vienna, Brussels
2008 Barbadiana , prints., Paris, Brussels. Bds.
2009 Miniatures, Main Guard, Garrison, Bds
2010 Alison Chapman -Andrews Collection , Queens Park Gallery ,Bds.
2011 Caribbean Moaic, , LES Centre , Bds
Collections
Barbados Gallery of Art
Barbados Museum
University of West Indies
National Gallery Committee Bds.
Hilton Hotel Collection, Bds.
Central Bank, Bds.
Artist Links
Heidi Berger www.heidiberger.com
Bill Grace www.billgraceart.com
National Art Gallery www.nagc.bb
Corrie Scott www.corriescott.net