Artist statement
Artist statement
I love drawing, sometimes with charcoal on paper but also with the pencils and inks involved in the production of lithographs.
When working with charcoal my drawings often involve creating images with a compressed and almost claustrophobic space. 'Time' is central to these drawings, both in the reflective time I spend making them and within the subjects such as faded interiors, scarred fell-sides with blasted hawthorns, and devastated and decaying forests.
In other drawings and oil paintings my subject is emphatically human. These are pictures of individuals. Sometimes they are made as portraits direct from life, but others evolve from 'found' photographic images (from television or newspapers).
When I am making lithographs 'man' is still very much in evidence and space is again important but the shallow space of the charcoals is replaced, in general, by wide-open space and, if there are ever any confines, these tend to be borders which are being crossed.
These lithographs are very simple images. The drawings for them have been pared right down. The amount of white paper around each image is an integral part of the picture and knowledge that the drawing has undergone a number of processes in the production of the print is crucial to the authority of the final image.
For me these images, with figures which are often journeying, searching or just waiting and looking are private, but hopefully universal, metaphors for my attempts to make sense of things.
Influences
The news (world events), the life and landscape of the Eden Valley in Cumbria, psychology, and artists - particularly Piero della Francesca, Hokusai and Michael Andrews.
Career path
Qualifications:
1971 Dip AD, Fine Art, St Martins School of Art, London
Areas of work:
Exhibiting
Collections:
The National Science Museum, London
Cumbria County Library (Penrith)
Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery
Portsmouth Central Library
Cooplands (Doncaster) Ltd
St Marys Hospital, Isle of Wight
Count Fritz Von der Schulenburg
Lord and Lady Inglewood
Viscount Devenport
Paintings in Hospitals,
Sheffield City Art Galleries
Derbyshire Museum Service
Bolton Museum and Art Gallery
Tyne and Wear Museums
Darlington Museum
Howarth Art Gallery Accrington
Gulbenkian Foundation
Wakefield Art Gallery
Imperial College of Science & Technology
Bradford Industrial Museum
Grundy Art Gallery Blackpool
The Leicestershire Collection
Penrith Hospital
Nature in Art
Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery
MAFF
University of Aberystwyth
Solo exhibitions
- 2012 Alan Stones Lithographs, CREA, Penrith, Cumbria
- 2005 Alan Stones' Lithographs, Chelsea Arts Club, London
- 2001 Great Expectations, Borsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels e.V., Leipzig, Germany
- 2001 Exhibition, galerie Sud, Leipzig, Germany
- 2000 Thorn, Gateshead Central Library
- 2000 - 2006, Rheged, Penrith, Cumbria
- 1999 Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Penrith Museum, Cumbria
- 1996 Looking out from Within, Tullie House, Carlisle, Cumbria
- 1996 Exhibition, Hartlepool Art Gallery
- 1995 Touring Exhibition, Falkland Islands
- 1994 Open House and Studio Week, Blencarn, Cumbria
- 1994 Oddfellow Gallery of Contemporary Art, Kendal, Cumbria
- 1993 Eden And 50 Associated Studies, Penrith, Cumbria
- 1987 Open Studio Every Wednesday Afternoon, Blencarn, Cumbria
- 1986 Fell Farm Labour, Carlisle Art Gallery and touring
- 1985 Work Land And Livestock, Peterborough and Touring
- 1985 Open Studio Week, Blencarn, Cumbria
- 1985 Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery
- 1985 Oldham Art Gallery
- 1985 Abbot Hall, Kendal, Cumbria
Group exhibitions
- 2012 C-Art @ Tullie, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, Cumbria
- 2012 Winter Exhibition, Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth, Cumbria
- 2012 Das Kleine Format 2012, Blaues Haus, Diessen, Bavaria, Germany
- 2012 Alan Stones and Rebecca Payn, Connections and Differences 2012, The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal, Cumbria
- 2011 Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Competition, Kings Place Gallery, London
- 2011 'Bite - Artists Making Prints', Mall Galleries, London
- 2011 'Twelve', Rheged, Penrith, Cumbria
- 2011 Wrexham Print International, Oriel Wrecsam, Wrexham and touring
- 2008 Alan Stones and Rebecca Payn, Connections and Differences 2008, Farfield Mill, Sedburgh, Cumbria
- 2008 'Jerwood Drawing Prize', Jerwood Space London, & touring
- 2008 'Because, Because I Do, I Do', University of Cumbria, Ambleside
- 2008 'Outside the Glass - Perspectives on the poet Norman Nicholson', Theatre by the Lake Keswick, & touring
- 2008 'Originals 08 - Contemporary Printmaking', Mall Galleries, London
- 2007 'Stone Plate Grease Water' - International Contemporary Lithography, MOMA Wales, and touring
- 2006 'Originals 06 - Contemporary Printmaking', Mall Galleries, London
- 2005 'Daffodils', Brantwood and Keswick Museum, Cumbria and touring to South Africa
- 2003 'Jerwood Drawing Prize', Jerwood Space London, & touring
- 2002 Love, Labour and Loss, Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter Museum and Art Gallery
- 1999 East North East, Northern print studio and Nagoya Printworks Japan
- 1999 Cheltenham Open Drawing and touring to Berlin and Hull
- 1998 Cheltenham Open Drawing and touring to Berlin and Hull -commendation
- 1998 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
- 1997 Robert Horne Printmaking, Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery and touring
- 1994 Art In The Garden, Oddfellows Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria
- 1989 The Advent Calendar, Gallery North, Cumbria
- 1988 Impressions Of Cumbria, Gallery North, Cumbria
- 1987 The Self Portrait - A Modern View, Artsite Bath and touring
- 1987 Northern Prints, Edinburgh Festival
- 1986 Tradition And Innovation In Printmaking Today, Milton Keynes and touring
- 1983 Artist In Industry, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield and touring
- 1982 Six East Anglian Artists, Kettles Yard, Cambridge
Residencies
- 1996 Printmaking Residency, Lowick House Printworkshop, Cumbria
- 1995 Falkland Islands, Falkland Islands Government, South Atlantic
- 1984 Artist in Industry Fellowship, Cooplands Bakery / Yorkshire Arts Association, Doncaster, South Yorkshire
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