Alcock’s surreal paintings tend to the idea of unyielding ‘care’ in a world of habitual apathy and
indifference—using the almost anarchic qualities of fragility, tenderness and conscientiousness as
both a delicate weapon of preservation and a means to confront its absence. Art history, the place of
the animal within it, and the shifting relationship between nature and humanity’s greater modes of
being all inform her imagery.
For this body of work, Alcock turns toward mythology, drawing on the Bestiary as an archive;
medieval scripts representing animals as symbols, allegories, and vessels of moral instruction. By
reimagining such stories through a surrealist lens, Alcock traces how animals have long been made
to bear human meaning, while also unsettling those hierarchies. Through the odd juxtapositions of
horror and humour, cognisance and obliviousness, her work seeks not to solve, but to make evident
the ethical, personal and ecological urgencies that arise from a lack of true care—inviting viewers
into a space of renewed awareness.
Fallen Angeel
From amber alcock
