Distinguished by deft realism, Alison Watt’s still lifes exude contemplative stillness, intimacy, and quietude. Totems to the act, and the art, of looking at painting, her canvases are informed by perception, memory, and art historical study of artists such as Allan Ramsay, Jean-Siméon Chardin, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Watt’s early practice centered on figural representation, including self-portraits and life studies. She turned to depictions of draped fabrics in the 1990s, in part after witnessing the imprints left behind on the white sheet by her departing life model. These folds, patterns, and impressions represented, in the artist’s words, “shadows of what had been before” and symbolized the absence and the presence of the body. Human resonance and implied narrative are felt throughout her still life paintings, which feature objects—including white cloths, roses, feathers, folded notes, hoses, and satin bows—in isolation, removed from their established meanings and contexts. Her work radiates light and finds form and subtlety in shadow, resulting in intimate tableaux that are familiar yet undiscovered, personal yet alluring.

Born in 1965 in Greenock, Scotland, Alison Watt (OBE) completed her under- and postgraduate studies at the Glasgow School of Art (1983–88) and garnered critical acclaim after receiving the 1987 John Player Portrait Award, presented by the National Portrait Gallery, London, as a student. Her monumental quadriptych Still (2004) hangs in the Memorial Chapel of Old Saint Paul’s Church, Edinburgh, in remembrance of the fallen soldiers in World War I. Beginning in 2006, she was an artist in residence at the National Gallery, London, for four years. Solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have taken place at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (2021–22); Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, England (2018–19); Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Scotland (2014); National Gallery, London (2008); Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (2002); and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2000, then the youngest artist to feature in a solo presentation at the museum), among others. Her paintings can be found in permanent collections including those of the Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland; Arts Council Collection, London; British Council Collection, London; National Portrait Gallery, London; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; and the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.