My Body is a Canvas. About Alison Dollery
Alison Dollery is a Visual Artist, Writer, Researcher and Curator who employs the materiality of her own body as both the medium and canvas (Body as a Canvas) for her work, engaging in a diverse array of artistic forms, expanding practices of drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, performance/body art, and writing.
These forms are all unified around the lived experience of her body, which she refers to as having a "Manufactured Body". Her interdisciplinary art practice and research have been deeply influenced by her long term health conditions, stigmatisation of the body and her journey of drastic weight loss and body transformation. Using her body as a canvas and research allowing her to assert ownership over her embodied experiences.
Describe by her peers as making ground breaking work. Alison is believed to be the first British artist that is using their body to show a body that has been medically transformed and manipulated through surgical interventions in contemporary society (Bariatric Surgery) . A body that has been every dress size from a size 8-26. Her work on body image is thought provoking and changes perceptions of what a body can be.
"I use my body because it's the material I know the best; it's malleable, transformable, ethical and honest"...
"We (our bodies/ourselves) are just material constructed by language, knowledge and experience"
(Dollery, 2020-2024)
Alison holds a MFA in Arts and Humanities from the Royal College of Art, and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the UCA. Her award nominated visual art's practice, writings and research have been exhibited and published internationally. Key moments include her 2025 artist talk at the Royal Academy of Art, Women in Art Prize repeatedly featured Artist and previous performance art at the Tate Modern.
She received full funding to curated her first solo show in 2023* the Manufactured Body Exhibition and has recently been awarded a studentship for her upcoming collaborative practice PhD through the Northern Bridge Consortium, Sunderland University and the Helen McArdle Nursing and Care Research Institute.
*funding awarded by UK government levelling up/ Arts Council Priority Place.
Curatorial Practice, Advocacy for the Arts and Art Workshops.
Between 2022 and 2025 Alison curated exhibitions and social media for Crawley Borough Council and POP Up Culture Crawley. Alongside consulting on the development of the arts in Crawley. The project was Funded by Arts Council England and UK government Levelling Up Funds, promoting and changing the Arts landscape in Crawley. Alison also runs multiple art workshops and talks for organisations such as Word Festival Crawley, focusing on community engagement and access to art for everybody.
In 2023, Alison Curated Crawley's first Contemporary Art Solo Show- The Manufactured Body Exhibition, including the Memories group show launch Crawleys Cultural Quarter Programme (Crawley Borough Council, 2023) . In 2024, she curated over 150 artists between Finding Place Contemporary Art Exhibition and The Summer Exhibition (open call) across five sites. She transformed disused buildings for art, including historic buildings, retail spaces, and already established spaces, such as retail windows, Crawley Library and the Crawley Museum.
All projects already have a legacy, with multiple artists whose work is featured at the exhibitions going on to win prestigious awards such as the Trinity Buoy Warf Drawing Prize and the Pastel Art Society.
"My curatorial approach is inclusively arts focused. I like to show established, well known artists alongside emerging artists of all ages, nationalities and styles. I like the challenge of this approach and how it can launch artists' careers, find platforms, and work in different ways and spaces, as well as how contemporary art can engage the audience or create experiences, transforming spaces and places not normally used for art exhibitions " (Dollery, 2024).