Alison Bennett
Melbourne Australia
mail(a)alisonbennett.com.au
0407 853 596

Alison Bennett is a visual artist investigating the theme of 'negotiated inhabitation'. She holds a BA (visual arts) majoring in photography from the UNSW College of Fine Arts and a research Master of Fine Arts from Monash University. Recent solo exhibitions include 'Cavity' at Horsham Regional Art Gallery January - March 2009, supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria; the 'to occupy' series at the Vivid National Photography Festival in Canberra August 2008,  featured in the November 2008 issue of Indesign magazine and reviewed in issue 2.2 of Un magazine;  'Verticalism: gothic ceilings' reviewed in issue#24 of Artichoke magazine; 'In Ruins' exhibited at Platform2  featured on the cover of Arena magazine #78 and ANTIthesis journal #17; 'Woolsheds and Shearers' Quarters' reviewed by Philip Drew in Indesign #24; and 'Inside Hill End' reviewed by Charles Rice in Architecture Australia July 2004. Robert Nelson, reviewing 'Making Hay' in The Age 15 Nov 2006, compared her work to that of Walker Evans. She curated the group exhibition 'Frames of Reference' for Bathurst Regional Art Gallery 2005 and has works in the collections of the National Museum of Australia, the Historic Houses Trust of NSW and the City of Geelong.

 In addition to her visual arts practice, Alison also works as a scene photographer for a weekly street press newspaper and sometimes teaches digital imaging and screen culture at Deakin University and NMIT in Melbourne.

The experience of space is imaginative and visceral. As an artist, I explore aspects of place and time through images of interiors, seeking an uncanny fusion of document and distortion that mimics the experience of interior spaces. I am interested in exploring the conflation of architectural and psychological 'interiority'. I am interested in the space between the physical fabric of a building and the lives enacted within it.

Interiority begins to describe the subjective experience of interiors. It is not simply about the experience of physical architectural interiors but also the experience of inside-ness, of constraint and containment within social and psychological constructs.