Alice Irwin is an award-winning artist, working with print, etching and sculpture to reference childhood experiences and create her own creatures from imaginary worlds.
Having graduated from the RCA in 2018, Irwin presented a solo show entitled ‘People Play’ at the Piece Hall in 2020 where she had a large outdoor public sculpture commission. In 2018, Irwin had a solo show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and in 2017 she won the Contemporary Art Trust prize for a series of prints.
Irwin has presented exhibitions at Flowers Gallery, Sid Motion Gallery, CGP London and East of Elsewhere in Berlin, and a Solo show in Tremenheere Sculpture Garden 2021. Her group of sculptures entitled ‘Peeps’, which was commissioned by Sky Arts, is currently being exhibited in London at Trinity Buoy Wharf having previously been exhibited in Canterbury at The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge.
Irwin combines the traditional and the new to push the boundaries of art and craft. She aims to convey the innocence we possess as children but also explore the nature of human identity, to balance the playful, naïve and comical qualities of her work with more thought provoking themes. Her work offers contrasts: some parts are tactile; others create kinetic experiences. These contrasts are designed to stimulate different kinds of memory. Through brightly coloured forms, Irwin wants her work to bring different perspectives and new ways of seeing the world. Her work emphasises the element of play, and aims to evoke joy in viewers.
As a result of Irwin’s dyslexia, she has used art to create a unique, personal visual language. She uses figurative shapes to create stories and characters that aim to bring people together. They encourage viewers to take a step out of normality and step into an imaginary world.
