Alison Mary Wilding OBE, RA (born 7 July 1948) is an English artist noted for her multimedia abstract sculptures. Wilding's work has been displayed in galleries internationally.

Life

Wilding was born in Blackburn, Lancashire. Between 1966 and 1967 she studied at the Nottingham College of Art, then at the Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in Chislehurst from 1967 to 1970 and, from 1970 to 1973, the Royal College of Art in London. Her artistic career gained momentum in the 1980s when she was part of a group of sculptors including Anthony Gormley and Richard Deacon.

Wilding was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours, for services to art.

Since 2018 she has been the Eranda Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy Schools. She lives and works in London, and has been represented by Karsten Schubert for over 30 years.

Career and work

Wilding's interest in sculpture was established during her time at the Nottingham College of Art. Her early influences include Constantin Brâncusi and ideas of simple construction.

She has used traditional materials, often found as reused, such as wood, stone and bronze, alongside others like steel, wax, silk, and rubber. These are often used in unusual combinations: Stormy Weather (1987), for example, is made from pigment, beeswax and oil rubbed into galvanised steel. Of her eclectic media, Wilding has said "I like stuff and not particular materials." Wilding's work typically includes two opposing materials purposed with representing positive and negative forces, creating a balance within the art. She maintains that she is conscious of waste and does not like to produce work that will not be displayed.

Wilding self-archives her work, personally giving them unique numbers and descriptions that are logged in small black notebooks. The notebooks also contain key details of her work, such as early designs and logs of her making progress. She has expressed that she would like the books to be destroyed rather than leave them to an institution despite requests from organisations such as the Henry Moore Institute.

In addition to sculpture, Wilding has also produced a variety of artworks on paper. On drawings, she says: 'The thing I like about drawings is that they can float. You don’t think about gravity. They do something really different. That is the freedom and pleasure of drawing for me. You are not weighed down by the material world in the same way. So, maybe, they are more imaginative.'

Wilding's approach to her work is often active and arbitrary, basing her decisions on her current time and place. She also takes a strictly non-political approach to her work, claiming; 'I don’t think art is going to change anyone’s life, not in the way film can do'.

Wilding's first solo exhibition was displayed at the Serpentine Gallery in 1985. She was subsequently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1987.

In 1991, a major retrospective of Wilding's work, Alison Wilding: Immersion – Sculpture from Ten Years, was held at Tate Liverpool. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1988 (and later in 1992) and received a Henry Moore Fellowship for the British School at Rome in 1988. In 1999 she was made a Royal Academician. Her only large-scale public artwork "Ambit" was installed in the River Wear at Sunderland in 1999, taking the form of a necklace of stainless-steel tubes floating in the river, and lit up from underwater at night. It was subsequently exhibited in the Manchester Ship Canal. It was scrapped in 2014.

Wilding won a Paul Hamlyn award in 2008. In the same year she won the Charles Wollaston Award presented by the Royal Academy for the most distinguished work in their summer exhibition.

Exhibitions, awards, and collections

Solo exhibitions

Young Friends of the Tate Gallery, Tate Gallery, London, UK (1970) Alison Wilding and Shelagh Wakely (with Shelagh Wakely), AIR Gallery, London, UK (1976) Sculpture (with Shirazeh Houshiary), Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, UK (1982) Salvatore Ala Gallery, New York, USA (1983) Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (1985) Salvatore Ala Gallery, Milan Italy (1985) New Sculpture, Salvatore Ala Gallery, New York, USA (1986) New Sculpture, Richard Salmon Ltd, London, UK (1986) Galleri Lång, Malmö, Sweden (1986) Projects: Alison Wilding, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (1987) Into the Brass, Richard Salmon Ltd, London, UK (1987) Sculptures, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (1987) Sculpture, Asher/ Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (1988) Alison Wilding: 1987–98, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (1988) Alison Wilding, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, USA (1989) Skulptura, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljan, Yugoslavia (1989) Sculptures, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (1990) Immersion, Sculpture from Ten Years, Tate Gallery, Liverpool, UK (1991) Exposure, Henry Moore Foundation Studio, Halifax, UK (1991) Alison Wilding, Asher/ Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA (1992) Bare, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK (1993) Recent Sculptures, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (1993) Air and Angels (with Anthony Gormley), ITN Building, London, UK (1994) Ambit, The Mattress Factory Art Museum, Pittsburgh PA, USA (1994) New Sculptures and Etchings, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (1995) Echo, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, UK (1995) Harbour, Alison Wilding's Studio, Tannery Arts, London, UK (1995) Echo, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, Karsten Schubert, London (1996) Sculptures, Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle de Calais, Calais, France (1996) A Project, Robert Miller Gallery, New York (1997) Territories, The Edmonton Art Gallery, York University, York, Canada (1997) Intensities, Abbot Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Kendal, UK (1997) Alison Wilding, New Art Centre, Roche Court Sculpture Park, Salisbury, UK (1997) Ambit, City Library, Art Centre, Sunderland, UK (1997) Artanspennine '98, Chapel of St John the Evangelist, Skipton Castle, Skipton, Yorkshire, UK (1998) Northern Art Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK (1998) Ambit, Panns Bank Public Art Project, Civic Centre, Sunderland, UK (1998) New Art Centre, Roche Court, Wiltshire, UK (2000) Contract, Henry Moore Foundation Studio, Dean Clough, Halifax, UK (2000) Template Drawings, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (2002) Alison Wilding: Migrant, Peter Pears Gallery and Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, UK (2003) Alison Wilding: New Drawings, The Drawing Gallery, London, UK (2005) Alison Wilding: Sculpture, Betty Cunningham Gallery, New York (2005) Vanish and Detail, Fred, London, UK (2005) North House Gallery, Manningtree, Essex, UK (2006) Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London (2006) Acanthus asymmetrically, Offer Waterman, Mayfair, London, UK (2008) Tracking, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (2008) Chamber Works, Benveniste Contemporary, Madrid, Spain (2010) All Cats are Grey..., Karsten Schubert, London, UK (2010) How the Land Lies, New Art Centre, Salisbury, UK (2011) Alison Wilding: Art School Drawings from the 1960s and 1970s, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (2011) Alison Wilding: Drawing, 'Drone 1-10''', Karsten Schubert, London, UK (2012) Deep Water, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2013) Alison Wilding, Tate Britain, Milbank, London (2013) Arena Redux, Art House Foundation, London, UK (2016) Acanthus asymmetrically, Offer Waterman, Mayfair, London (2017) Alison Wilding, The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, UK (2018) Right Here and Out There, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK (2018) Arena, Leeds Art Gallery, UK (2018) Alison Wilding: On the Edge, Jesus College, Cambridge, UK (2019) Doors Closing, Doors Opening, Betty Cunningham Gallery, Lower East Side, New York (2020) Mesmer, Again, Karsten Schubert, London, UK (2020)

Group exhibitions

Clare Court, Trinity College, Cambridge, UK (1973)