Alia

I am an audio-artist that uses music hardware (no laptop) to create music which I adapt live- effectively remixing my own music in real time. I tend towards the techno genre but relish the challenge of creating site-specific music such as I did as part of the Q121 project- playing music live in the historic wind tunnel in Farnborough to a paying audience. I also like to create unique sounding instruments or sound sources using contact microphones or by “circuit-bending” older electronic toys. By creating unique instruments this way- old, unwanted toys can be sustainably given new leases of life and become both sonically and artistically pleasing or interesting. I like to collaborate with other artists.    

I am a visual artist who works across a range of media, originally crochet and textile but more recently in sculpture, installation and performance. I have a sensory approach to connecting to materials, most of them domestic recycled waste. I am very interested in experimentation and cross collaborations with artists from other disciplines and also outside of the field of the arts. Across the years, my practice has delved into the visual and metaphorical links between neuroscience and crochet, the cracking and transformations of womanhood after the menopause and more recently the opening and reconnecting to nature.

I am a painter and art educator living in Yateley, Hampshire. As a painter, I have exhibited in Hampshire, Reading, Margate, London and Edinburgh, including Women’s Society of Artists and ING Discerning Eye. Mostly working in oils, but also watercolour, pencil and printmaking, my paintings are about challenging stereotypes in representation of socially disadvantaged groups, and very often about motherhood. I teach painting and drawing regularly to small groups and one-to-one. I love to give people confidence to explore different mediums as well as their own creativity.