
Alice Irwin: Streaky Dance
Art Outdoors /Alice Irwin: Streaky Dance
Alice Irwin’s (b. 1994) work explores the relationship between figurative and abstract imagery. Her distinctive visual style combines simplified body shapes, repeating symbols and bright colours, typically pink, orange and blue. Childhood experiences, games and memories are common themes in the artist’s sculpture and printmaking. There is an intentional naivety in her work, but this is often paired with a deeper consideration of the more complex aspects of human identity. Although her works are playful, they can also feel unsettling in their faceless anonymity.
The form of Streaky Dance has recurred in Irwin’s work for several years. However, while other sculptures, including Peeps and People Play, are not gendered, for this work she was drawn to the female form to consider how women see themselves and their bodies. It aims to encourage us to embrace who we are and to come together to acknowledge and enjoy our uniqueness. With one foot raised off the ground in a joyful stance, Streaky Dance captures a sense of motion and invites people to move and celebrate their bodies.
Alice Irwin graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2018. In the same year, she exhibited in the Bothy Gallery at YSP where she showed a selection of prints alongside new sculpture. In 2020 she was commissioned to make a major group of 11 works for The Piece Hall in Halifax, and has recently appeared on Sky Art’s Landmark programme.
You may also like
- Art Outdoors
Leiko Ikemura: Usagi Kannon II
Usagi Kannon II [Rabbit Madonna] is one of Ikemura’s most significant motifs. Her hybrid creature with rabbit ears and a crying, human face acts as symbol of universal mourning, first created in 2011 in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. - Art Outdoors
Jaume Plensa: Wilsis
Wilsis appears to be deep in thought or dreaming. Her eyes are closed and she is inward-looking and self-contained, remote from the present moment and the beauty of the surrounding scenery. Although monumental in size at over 7 metres high, this sculpture depicts a normal girl, rather than immortalising a traditionally extraordinary or powerful person. - Profile
Greville Worthington (Former YSP Chairman)
Former YSP Chairman of Trustees Jordy Kerwick: One to Give. One to Take Away
–Jordy Kerwick’s fantastical creatures come to life in sculpture and paintings in The Weston Gallery and outdoors.