ALISON LAMBERT

b. 1957


Alison Lambert was born in England in 1957. She studied at Leek and Coventry Schools of Art, graduating in 1984 with a BA (Hons.) in Fine Art. Since then her work has been exhibited widely and since 1999 she has been represented by the Jill George Gallery, London.
Collections include: Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte; Bank of America, Jersey; Birmingham Corporate Collection; private collections in the UK, Europe, USA Canada and Australia.


Over the past twenty years, Alison Lambert has established a reputation as one of the foremost British artists working with the human figure. During the early part of her career she produced many powerful paintings and drawings of animal and human forms, often combining them in mysterious and dream-like tableaux which evoked a world of mystery and impending violence. She subsequently produced calmer and more monumental images, deriving her subject matter from classical Greek statuary and literature. Later, following visits to medieval churches
and other religious sites, she was deeply moved by early Christian iconography which led her to abandon her classical, idealised influences and to produce figures and portraits which displayed greater emotional intensity.

As her work gradually took on a more naturalistic appearance, she was drawn to the photographs of Native Americans, made by Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868 - 1952) - images which led her to escape the influence of classical idealised forms and stylised religious iconography to produce a series of portraits with a greater
sense of realism. It was this development that permitted her a deeper exploration of the subjective states of her characters.1


1 Text extract: Alan Dyer: Alison Lambert, Emotion and Expression, Coventry Canal Basin Trust, 2005.