Photo by Ben Deakin
Alice McCabe
London, UK
Underpinning Alice McCabe's work is a love of misunderstanding and humour, gleaned from a keen interest in Dada. An optimistic nihilist her work is designed to help the viewer reconstrue – and find space for – colourful protest within everyday life.
The addition of the collaged hand cut milk bottle tops allow for another layer of meaning or reflection within the work both via content of cut out imagery or everyday use or qualities of the materials themselves. She began collecting milk bottle tops when living in Zurich both purchasing them and collecting them by drinking the coffee creams. They are designed in series and often presented as a collection within themselves: e.g tropical fish, cigar wrappers, the Swiss ski team! Hand cutting her own series, the shape of the milk bottle top does not tessellate well so the cut outs always render an image incomplete, with some image lost. The exploration of this presentation of something which is both offering additional layers of meaning, but also missing information, is a vital part of her art making process as it tries to capture how she sees the world.
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Alice McCabe (b. 1984, U.K / Australian) is a mixed media artist creating floral installations, paintings and performances often with foraged and found materials of an ephemeral nature. Alice studied Fine Art Painting BA at the University of Brighton (2008) before completing her MA in Critical Arts Education and Curation at ZHdK (2014.) In 2016 she set up Alice McCabe Flowers followed by Metafleur in 2020 focussing on large-scale sustainably designed installations for events and launches. From 2022 - 2023 she studied on the Turps Studio Programme, bringing painting once again to the fore in her practice. Significant exhibitions include Five by Five, a group exhibition at Incubator Gallery in January 2024 that featured pairs of established and emerging artists, including her partner Georgie Hopton, as well as Mona Hatoum, Maggie Hambling and others.
Detail of 'Mat(t)er', acrylic gesso and hund cut milk bottle tops on canvas, h. 120 x w. 100 x d. 5 cm
