Bio
Alison Brady is a New York based artist. She hails from the slightly tattered outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio, and the image of faded middle-class “coziness” is one that lies at the heart of her photos. Her work is compelling, funny, and disturbing, that mucks through unconscious emotions, desires, and sexual compulsions, all unified by an aesthetic that vacillates between the banal and the fantastic. Roberta Smith of the The New York Times wrote “Ms. Brady’s work deals rather explicitly and hilariously with the female predicament.”
Brady exhibits nationally and internationally and her pieces can be found in many private and public collections such as Elton John’s collection and the West Collection. Her work has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, New York Arts Magazine, Time Out NY and Lady Gunn. She was named one of the top emerging artists in the world by Saatchi Gallery. Brady’s work was also accepted into the prestigious Artist Pension Fund by a group of leading curators from MoMA and Tate Modern who select a mere five percent of applicants each period. She holds an MFA in Photography Video and Related Media from The School of Visual Arts (NYC). Brady is represented by Rick Wester Fine Art, in New York.
CV
Education
2006 MFA, School Of Visual Arts, New York
2003 BFA, School of Art, Architecture, Design & Planning, OH
Solo Exhibitions
2014 What Should Remain Secret, Rick Wester Fine Art, Inc. New York, NY
2011 Sincerely Yours, Hous Projects, New York NY
2009 An Uncertain Nature Massimo Audiello, New York, NY
2007 Sweet Affliction Massimo Audiello, New York, NY
Group Exhibitions
2015 Beauty Undefined 51 Orchard Street, New York, NY
2014 BACG at SELECT Fair Miami, Florida
2013 Unicef’s Next Generation Photo Benefit, Milk Studio New York, NY
2013 Finishing School, Miami, Florida
2013 QCP Queensland Centre For Photography South Brisbane, Australia
2012 Next Generation: Young American Photography, Bayerisch Amerikanisches Zentrum
Munich, Germany
2012 Home is, Ercole Home, New York, NY
2010 Mulherin + Pollard, Earth to Mar,s New York, NY
2011 Kirkland Arts Center, Kirkland, WA
2010 4x4 Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2009 BAM Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn, NY
2009 Remember Me When I’m Dead, Fleetwing Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2009 Prague Biennale, The Newest New York Young Photographers from the Big Apple
Prague, Czech Republic
2008 Young Curators, New Ideas, Bond Street Gallery, Brooklyn NY
2008 Randall Scott Gallery - Eight Photographers Group Show, Washington, D.C. 2008 TFOP National Juried Exhibition, CVA Gallery,
TFOP Toledo Friends of Photography, Center of the Visual Arts in Toledo, OH 2007 Booby Hatch, Woom Gallery, Birmingham, England
2007 Distinctive Messengers, House of Campari, of Campari Exhibition, curated by
Simon Watson and Craig Hensala, New York, NY New York, NY
2007 Life is But a Dream, Space 301, Mobil, Al
2006 Strange Instrument, 3rd Ward Brooklyn, NY
2006 The Early Work: School of Visual Arts Masters Thesis Exhibition, New York, NY 2005 SVA 2nd Fl Gallery The Teenage Gothic , New York, NY
2004 7th Annual Fall Mixer: Spark Gallery, Syracuse, NY
Statement
My work, is a series of color photographs that work to stimulate unconscious emotions, desires, and sexual compulsions, all unified within a dynamic that vacillates between the real and the fantasized. I explore issues related to madness and alienation as they exist in contemporary culture, concentrating on expressions of neurosis, on feelings of anxiety, displacement, and loss of identity. These emotions are depicted in terms of visual conflict
through my imagery, and manifested in terms of grotesque exaggeration. While investigating issues related to the unconscious, elements such as eroticism, twisted humor, and horror
come across. I strive to create dichotomies between the sensual and the horrific, the beautiful and the destructive; the result, I hope, is a body of work comprised of deeply emotional and disturbing depictions of the unknown, staged imagery that functions on a metaphorical level, and inanimate objects and settings serving to illustrate the inner workings of the unconscious.
Nearly everyone has experienced some sort of traumatic disconnect in their lives, whether it is a severance within the body/self or a break from family or friends. Much hysteria is rooted in such traumatic experience, one that cannot be integrated into a person’s understanding of the world. Freud, in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” states, “Often times we tend to repeat a traumatic event over and over even until it becomes pleasurable.” This repetition contradicts our instinct to seek pleasure but, regardless, our mind has a tendency to repeat traumatic events in order to deal with them, as a way of mastering them. This repetition can take the form of dreams, storytelling, or even hallucination; my images allude to the cryptic mental
re-scrambling through which our traumatic events resurface. When I conceive my images the questions I ask myself are: What is the state of normality? How can that normality be subverted, perverted, or generally transformed? When does this overcome the real and become psychotic?