I’m a guest artist invited by Unprimed collective to exhibit in their October London group show, from Friday 30 Oct – Sunday 1 Nov 2026. Come along to see my new landscape collage work Roche Rock which draws on family histories and shifting identities.
I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday. All welcome at the private view, 2-6pm Saturday.
Downstairs, The Department Store, 248 Ferndale Road, London SW9 8FR – a short walk from Brixton tube.
This paper collage work is the first in a new series, inserting myself into works from art history.
Self Portrait in the Garb of a Nun (after Sofonisba Anguissola), 2025, watercolour and paper collage on wood panel, 50cm x 65cm.
It ‘remixes’ a painting by the pioneering female Renaissance artist Anguissola, which I’ve long known and loved. It’s in the Southampton City Art Gallery collection and it’s familiar from the wet Sunday afternoons of childhood, through many seasons of my life.
I exhibited it for the first time in London, in September 2026 as part of ‘Unpeeled’, with _painterpainter_ collective: a group of artists who participated in alternative art school Turps’ Correspondence course.
‘Unpeeled’, 10-13 September 2026, The Department Store, London.
If you’d like to see new works in the series, get in touch and we can arrange an in-person or virtual studio visit!
Come and see paintings made by the 2025-26 cohort of the Turps Correspondence Course, in Brixton.
I’ll be showing the first work in a new series of collage self-portraits which respond to works from art history. More info at https://www.instagram.com/_painterpainter_/
This autumn I will be running a narrative life drawing session at Jo Morley Studio in Southampton.
“A half day drawing workshop with artist Alys Scott-Hawkins. Draw from the clothed figure in response to stories, in this playful, structured session.
We’ll warm up by making a series of drawings in which the figure is in action, and then draw the model as a character in longer poses which derive from a short story or poem.
This session is for beginners and experienced artists who are looking for inspiration with visual storytelling. The drawings produced in the session could be the starting point for a graphic narrative, storyboard, illustration or animated sequence.”
Sunday 15 November, 1-4pm, £38 per person. Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/figure-story-playful-life-drawing-session-tickets-1994800067701
The first exhibition of a selection of my ink self-portraits, is now open at the Butcher’s Hook, Southampton.
Nine works are on show, all prints available for sale either framed (from £95) or unframed (from £65). Please contact me hello@alysscotthawkins.co.uk for more details.
7 Manor Farm Road
Bitterne Park
Southampton
SO18 1 NN
I’ve written about the the process of making Hysteria for the academic journal Animation Practice, Process & Production and I’m thrilled that an image from the film has been chosen for the volume’s front cover.
Hysteria: An autoethnographic reflection on making an animated documentary film from archive material
Abstract:
This paper investigates the process of collection, interpretation and modification in the making of an experimental animated documentary film. In 2001, I made a two-minute film, Hysteria, as a first year project on the master’s animation course at the Royal College of Art. Given as a starting point the word ‘bedlam’, I researched the history of mental healthcare and discovered documentation of medical practices in the late 1800s of clitoridectomy and genital massage as a ‘cure’ for the condition of hysteria.
Making the film was a singular, insular journey – a stream-of-consciousness voyage of discovery: uncovering and collating material and then interpreting it through visual experimentation. Key to my process was use of a sketchbook that became a space for montage: juxtaposing material from contemporary sources against archive documents and incorporating research material into my visual experiments.
Using autoethnographic writing, I return to the state of mind that produced this film – asking how and why it came to exist – and through audio reflection I re-read the sketchbook to analyse the processes of drawing, annotating and editing which produced it. In doing so, I attempt to understand the intuitive process of interpretation, and to draw out insights which can inform my future practice.
The Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize exhibition opened on 24th May, at an absolutely packed Piano Nobile Gallery at King’s Place, London. My ink drawing ‘Ready for a Change Now’ was long listed from over 1000 entries. Ruth Borchard was a writer who came to the UK as a Jewish refugee from Germany in 1938. She collected 100 self-portraits by British artists, and the biennial prize celebrates her collection.
Sadly didn’t win the £10K prize this time, but it was fantastic to be there for the opening, and see my work exhibited alongside Eileen Cooper, Julian Opie …and Tracey Emin in the crowd too!
Very happy to say that I’ll be presenting work-in-progress on new animated documentary film ‘CFFH’ at the Society for Animation Studies annual conference from 17-21 June 2019.
This project returns to material produced in development of a film 20 years ago, examining the archive of sketchbooks, scripts and artwork which articulate the experience of losing my dad to alcoholism. For the first time I will be using autoethnography consciously within the film-making process (rather than as a tool for reflection on previous work), as a means by which the ‘me now’ can interact with the ‘me then’.
Details of the conference can be found here: http://sas2019.ulusofona.pt
Ongoing series of ink self-portraits, which began with work made for group show ‘Elephant’, Paris, Nov 2017.
Most recent work can be seen on instagram
