Susan Aldworth

Susan Aldworth (born 1955) has a background in philosophy, and a strong interest in investigating the workings of the human mind, especially consciousness and our sense of self. Her work on the relationship between the physical brain and our sense of identity has linked her with the Art & Science movement in the UK since the late 1990s. She is interested in the lived experience, and her experimental work in both print and time-based media interrogates the personal, medical, medicated, scientific and philosophical narratives on which we build our notions of self. Working as an artist-in-residence in a medical or academic setting is central to her practice, giving her access to scientists, patients and health professionals. Her work is held in many public and private collections including the V&A, the British Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum, the British Library and The Wellcome Collection Library in the UK, and Williams College Museum of Art in the USA. She has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at Fitzwilliam Museum and National Portrait Gallery. Current exhibitions: Illuminating the Self at Hatton Gallery and Vane in Newcastle, and Freelands Foundation in London. Aldworth is a regular presenter on BBC Radio.

Susan Aldworth is an associate lecturer on the MA Art&Science at Central ST Martin's London. She studied philosophy at Nottingham University, and fine art at Sir John Cass, London. She was Senior Research Associate at Swansea Metropolitan University, Research Fellow in Print at London Metropolitan University and Artist in Residence at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University 2017-2020.

Current exhibitions:
Illuminating the Self, Hatton Gallery and Vane, Newcastle 18 January – 9 May 2020
There, where we promenade, Freelands Foundation, London 23 January – 29 March 2020
Body & Mind, Centre for Craft and Design Sleaford , Lincs 1 February – 18 April 2020
Picture Palace, Transition Gallery, London 8 March – 5 April 2020

Other significant recent exhibitions include:

The Dark Self , York St Mary’s
Realisation, The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge
Susan Aldworth: The Portrait Anatomised , The National Portrait Gallery. London
Transience, GV Art, London
Mapping the imagination, V&A, London
Reassembling the Self, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle
Sleuthing the Mind, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York,
Brains: the mind as matter, Wellcome Collection
Mind Maps: Stories from Psychology, Science Museum
Images of the Mind Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden and Moravian Gallery, Brno
Landscapes of the Mind, Williams College Museum of Art, USA
6th International Kyoto Hanga Print Exhibition, Japan.