Alanna Blake
Degree: MLitt Fine Art Practice
University: Glasgow School of Art
Graduation Year: 2020
New Blood Art Commentary
Who says the minutiae of contemporary life can’t receive the same artistic treatment as grand, historic narratives? In Alanna Blake’s paintings, the daily is just as dramatic; identities are built, memories are lost, and the pains of growing are more grandiose than are usually given credit. Internal shifts are captured with sensitivity, and Blake uses composition and colour palettes drawn from the art historical canon to imbue scenes with life. Colours shift, as amber fields and midnight skies fall around pensive figures battling with elements, internal and external. Influences include Francisco Goya’s etchings depicting the ambiguity of human nature, and W.H. Auden’s famous poem “Musee de Beaux Arts”, where the human trowels on, and ‘the sun shone/ As it had to’.
Artist Statement
I’m an Irish painter currently finishing up the MLitt in Fine Art Painting at Glasgow School of Art. Since graduating from my BA in 2016 I have solely been focused on figurative painting. I have exhibited in group shows in Dublin, Germany, Brighton and Glasgow and have undertaken four international residencies. In 2018 I undertook an intensive course at the Royal Drawing School in London for which I received funding from the Irish Arts Council to complete. I see my work as a vehicle to explore contemporary identities in relation to transitional periods in life, memory and gender representation. By blending figural likeness with colour palettes and compositions from the canon of art history, I aim to represent a nuanced range of emotions and create paintings that seek to contain atmosphere, vitality and express the materiality of the medium. I start and finish each work in a relatively short amount of time allowing for spontaneity to remain present.
The series I presented for my graduate digital degree show took found images, early renaissance paintings and personal memories as source material. The series was an attempt to disrupt the grand narratives of historic paintings by borrowing their compositions, figures and techniques but orienting them within the worlds of today’s young adults and older people. These are often points of painful life transition that are universally experienced. In un-magnificent, ordinary scenes I aimed to convey the contrast of the grand narrative to the colloquial. My main influence for this body of work was the serene, pensive figures from early renaissance painters such as Piero Della Francesca and Giotto as well as later historical artworks, such as late paintings and etchings by Francisco Goya that thematically explore the folly of man, alongside references to 20th century artists such as Winifred Knights and Justine Kurland and the poem “Musee de Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden.
Group Exhibitions
(2019) Riot, Socially Engaged Art Salon, Brighton
(2018) 11 Positions in the Woods, 9/10 Gallery, Poznan, Poland
(2017) Saturday, Irish Museum of Contemporary Art, Dublin
(2017) Nod to Shake, The Darkroom, Dublin
Competitions, Prizes & Awards
(2019) Received funding from Pride Cultural Development fund
(2018) Travel and Training award from the Irish Arts council