Alison Dalwood is a British painter whose work has been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Her practice centres on the perceptual and material conditions of painting, with a sustained focus on the interaction of colour, surface, and light. Through a deliberately economical pictorial language and the layering of pigment, she seeks to evoke within painting an equivalent energy to the experience of perceived light, without recourse to replication or representation. Colour operates as a generative force, producing spatial phenomena, suggestions of flux and movement, and moments of perceptual uncertainty. Marks are merged and layered to form finely balanced surfaces that hold the viewer in a state of visual and sensory attentiveness. Earlier in her practice, Dalwood produced large-scale photographic installations incorporating layered, semi-transparent media to explore perception and the relationship between surface and viewer.

Dalwood studied Fine Art at Newcastle University and holds an MFA from the University of Reading. She has presented solo exhibitions at venues including the Globe Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (Nothing from Something, 2013); Casa Matei Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (Unattended Moment, 2011); Academia Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria (Multiple Spaces, 2007); Institute for New Media, Frankfurt (Time and Light, 2005); Agni Fine Art, The Hague, Netherlands (Recente Schilderijen, 2000); Galerie Unwahr, Berlin, Germany (Neue Arbeiten, 1999); and the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle.

Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, among them Are You Saying What I’m Saying, Art and Design Gallery, University of Hertfordshire (2022); Recepice Finem, Schloss Bothmer, Germany (2020); Fully Awake, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh Art Festival (2019); The Open West, The Wilson Gallery, Cheltenham (2015); All the Things Between, Inter Art Gallery, Beijing (2008); Field of Vision: Beijing, Beijing New Art Projects (2006); Field of Vision: New York, The Lab Gallery, New York (2004); Gefährliche Benutzeroberflächen, Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuenhaus, Germany (2003); and Location Matters, I Space Gallery, Chicago (2000).

Dalwood has been awarded residencies at the Institute for New Media, Frankfurt (2005) and at the University of Oxford’s Harcourt Arboretum (2009). She received Arts Council of England Individual Artist Grants in 2005 and 2007, and was the recipient of the University of Hertfordshire Vice Chancellor’s Award in 2007. Dalwood works as a fine art lecturer and was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art and programme leader of both BA and MA programmes at the University of Hertfordshire

Her work is held in private and public collections, including a permanent commissioned installation at the University of Ulster.