TURPS BANANA _ One year of studio painting

Where is the vase, I?

Acrylic and gesso on canvas

122 x 184cm

2023

Been a total treat returning to art school - Alternative Art School, Turps Banana as part of their studio programme from 2022 - 2023.

Led by Phil Allen and orchestrated by Marcus Harvey and Helen Hayward, it has been an absolute pleasure to join the Turps Painting community. Turps provides artists with studio space and regular tutorials, artists talks and contextualising crits, with an invitation to investigate your painting practice via these sessions with mentors as much as with peers on course.

For more of my art works please visit: www.alicemccabe.com

The Unknown Home’s the Known

Acrylic and gesso on canvas

91 x 122cm

2023

Mat(t)er

Acrylic, gesso and hand cut milk bottle tops on canvas

100 x 120cm

2023

Growth Exhibition 15.05 - 23.05.21 // A collaboration with OmVed Gardens and Thrown Contemporary

"The natural world growing around us, the constant ebb and flow of plants reacting to the seasons, at a pace invisible to our busy lives. And of course our own emotional growth, an inward personal journey which may not be visible to the outside world – and sometimes even, yet, ourselves."

Claire Pearce, curator of exhibition and director of Thrown Contemporary.

It is a pleasure to be collaborating again with OmVed Gardens and Thrown Contemporary again for their 2021 Exhibition "Growth" as part of The Chelsea Fringe. Following ongoing hardships and uncertainties this exhibition looks at the weathering and points of direct friction as we face each other, ourselves and society moving forward.

My "Flipside Gardens: Spring / Autumn" and "Summer / Winter" (which together illustrate the garden year) are now on display at Growth exhibition alongside creation of new floral vessel "Gatekeeper" which sees my flowers move from inside to outside of the vessel, to become the whole arrangement.

To view the exhibition online visit Growth Exhibition

Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in "The Word for World is Forest” // 14 - 28.03.21

“Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in The Word for World is Forest” is a large hanging work composed of mesh, Venetian blind slats, dried dahlias, Swiss milk bottle tops and small squares of mirror. The starting point for this work was trying to envisage the loss to our collective imagination via mass extinction, which, being completely unable to visualise and slightly overwhelmed by a sense of earnestness, initiated a turn to natural world references and symbolism.

The cut- out blind form is inspired by an ocean sunset and the sense of the sun’s rays hitting the water. Two maquettes of the work (made from re-purposed diary and see – through ribbon) are attached to the piece that went through many different forms. These included a double or reversed sunset, which look like an i and ! next to each other, which felt like a fitting reference to our view and use of the planet.

Whilst the title Blind Horizon is self explanatory the second part is developed from a dystopian book by sci-fi writer Ursula Le Guin “The Word for World is Forest.” In this book an aggressive team of men abuse a local race of creatures to harvest natural materials for use on the frazzled and irreparable earth. In the introduction she talks about love vs power and the difficulties of making a work that feels preachy; offering courage via creative complexity when an urgent message must be addressed.

The milk bottle tops here are displayed in series – one complete line of species on the left and remaining doubles from the series on the right. The second series is also mirrored this way, but more gaps emerge as they must be rarer. In this way the collection of milk bottle tops attached try to articulate some of this potential loss and place of choice we sit at now in light of the Climate and Ecological Crisis.

For more information, please visit Window135

Fieldwork I at Kenspace // 27.02 – 28.03.21

Fieldwork I exhibited at Ken artspace, an artist run space in the heart of Kennington, dedicated to a mix of exhibitions, window installations and pop-up events orgnanised by Rob Kesseler, fellow botanical artist, and Agalis Manessi.

Fieldwork I at Ken artspace, photograph by Sebastian Boettcher and Walking Fieldwork I to Ken artspace, with Anny Lytridou through Kennington Park, photographs by Ben Deakin.

Fieldwork I was created as one of two hanging floral tapestries for Glasscloud Gallery in 2020. Fieldwork I is a reflection of an internal landscape and started off with a rough sketch imagining the five seasonal elements wood, fire, earth, metal and air of chi kung practice flowing into a central void. As the work developed via the intuitive drawing of lines with millet and heather the concept behind the work expanded rooting itself in the philosophy of natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka who advocated for observation and experiments in farming over intellectual knowledge. This piece aims at capturing this inquisitiveness whilst also encouraging exploration of our individual nature and collective responsibility towards our environment.