Alison Whitmore Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

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I am a Nottinghamshire artist working with lost, discarded and found materials to create assemblage sculpture, vignettes, curiosity boxes and mini installation pieces. My current work explores the human experience, the multitude of detritus we leave behind, our impact on the environment and relationships between real and fake, the valuable and the valueless.

Much of my current work explores the multitude of detritus we leave behind. The human animal adorns their home and surroundings with a variety of objects which, at that moment seen useful or aesthetically pleasing. Objects are useful until they are superseded or broken, and aesthetic until the next style trend dictates that they have lost their appeal.

I explore the mass of the left behind, discarded, or lost objects as being essential ingredients in a new story. With these materials I create new objects and environments; coloured plastics set in resin, dolls’ house style vignettes, mini installations and curiosity boxes.

Interrogating these leftovers of humanity, I combine them with personal treasures, elevating their status to ‘valuable’ artefacts, appropriating the visual language of archaeological or ethnographic pieces, religious pieces, reliquary or contemporary consumer products. Elevating the objects explores the relationships between the real and the fake, the valuable and the valueless.

In doing this I investigate aspects of human experience; life, love and death, and the pressure we exert on the environment. By contemplating what signifies value, I aim to challenge societal notions of monetary worth and discover genuine substance. This investigation leads me to analyse my relationship with specific objects, on which I have conferred meaning and value, and that of consumer society on possessions.