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Biography
Alex Roberts is an artist, lecturer and collaborative researcher who curates art exhibitions and platforms of exchange which seek to examine how painting beholds the viewer. A painter who’s language travels between observation and material play; Alex’s research in surveying empathetic gestures and recollected encounters: exploring the spectacle and non-reveal of identity, resonate in her role as Lecturer in Drawing at Duncan Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Alex steers life drawing and wider drawing practice for interdisciplinary Art & Design, and tutors within Contemporary Art Practice alongside supervising practice based MRes and PhD research.
Research
Working with paint and translucence, Alex addresses paintings’ surface, layers and spatial depth by effecting colour and immediacy of marks. Testing the sliding scales of figuration and abstraction, her focus probes the instability of perceived identity, change, and encounters. Reviewing the expansive aspects of body language, hints of narrative, performativity and embodiment that equate with painting.
Alex exhibits internationally
Splinters of Angst Derelict, Hua International Berlin; Close To The Edge, Spor Klübü, Berlin; Once Guarded, KHBStudios Berlin Art Week; With Love II, Paint Talk; TORN TEN, TORN Contemporary; Wells Art Contemporary 2020; Happy Hour, Kristin Hjellegjerde London Bridge; PaintLounge BERLIN; Control to Collapse, Blyth Gallery; St. Paul’s Cathedral; What Hat am I Wearing Today? Paul Abbott and Alex Roberts, MOCA London; Connect: Katowice, Rondo Gallery Katowice, Poland.
Awards
Contemporary Art Collectors Book Volume I (featured artist); The Waverton Art Prize (long-listed); Ever Emerging, The Berlin Edition (featured artist); Jackson’s Open Painting Prize (listed); AA2A residency - Bucks New University; Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust; The Eaton Fund; ACE & British Council Grant - The Artists' International Development Fund; HIX Award (finalist); The Red Mansion Art Prize and Contemporary Visions VI, Beers London (short-listed).
Alex’s latest curatorial project
Gestural Reflective & Inquiring Tales (G.R.I.T.) is centred around an exhibition of fourteen painters, which explores how gesture and its physicality engage both the maker and the viewer. Press, top tipped/ reviewed by Tip Berlin and Scotland’s The Courier, the contributing artists tackle some of the core principles of contemporary painting, and G.R.I.T. contextualizes art as a collective practice which, at the same time, requires deep contemplation. With international contributors, the exhibition aimed to bridge Europe and was first on view in Berlin (August 2024) then, Dundee (Sept/ Oct 2024). Through those two instalments, the project developed as a model for sustainable artistic exchange. Beyond the exhibition, G.R.I.T. includes symposia as well as a public program, and the project aims to further discourse with a publication.
Other recent curating examples list
The Performativity of Painting at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich Galleries, and Arts Council England & British Council funded, Connect: Katowice, a British Polish, yearlong exchange and series of exhibitions.
Teaching
Alex welcomes applications from possible practice led, painting based MRes and PhD projects, researchers.
PGR students
Higgins, Catriona: Ink and Inclusion, 2025. Alex is the second Supervisor.
MacKinnon, Kirstin: Gender and Contemporary Scottish Painting: A Critical Analysis of the Place of Painting for Emerging Artists in Scotland Today, 2024. Alex was the second Supervisor.
Alex completed her MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts after previous study at the University of Arts London in 2D Digital Design for Communication, following a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from The University of Reading. She joined DJCAD having formerly worked as a Lecturer in Fine Art (BA Module Leader for Drawing and for MA Fine Art Studio Practice) at Leicester School of Art, De Montfort University (2019-21). Beforehand teaching drawing and painting at The Edge, The University of Bath (2013-2019) and The Drawing Week, Bath Spa University (2018-20). Alex continues to work as a Guest Lecturer at Bauhaus Summer School, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (2019-). Further current academic roles: external examiner for BA Fine Art, University of Northampton.
Alex holds an accredited teaching and learning Fellowship (FHEA) from Advance HE. Resulting from her PG Cert in Professional Learning in Higher Education and extra MA Education module, e-learning Pedagogy and Application at Bath Spa University.