Jonathan Alibone

'I intend my art to not so much reveal and illuminate, but to deepen mysteries, to declare the strange, even terrifying, in the familiar and banal around us.'

Currently based in the United Kingdom, Jonathan Alibone is a resident of The Artist's Sanctuary in Northampton, England. He has exhibited widely and his work features in private collections in the UK, Europe, Russia, and North America.

The paintings of Jonathan Alibone offer an exploration of the uncertainty and irreconcilable antagonisms inherent in our existence. They are populated with ghosts, and haunted by loss, unconsummated desire, and a nameless longing.

His approach is to suggest incompleteness and absence, a removal or abandonment of the subjects, setting them adrift from their original contextual moorings so that they appear alienated, isolated in undefined and ambiguous spaces.
In this light, Alibone’s work can be read as artefacts and remnants of culture: by deliberately using ephemera and found photographs that allow for a visceral charge and immediacy, he presents images that are at once both familiar and strange, allowing innuendo and a heightened sense of drama to extend meaning beyond what is depicted. The work’s realism becomes a means to not...

Past exhibitions:
2022 'A Generous Space', Hastings Contemporary, Hastings, UK
2022 'The Environment', Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2022 'Room Share 2', Safehouse One, London, UK
2021 'Wells Art Contemporary (WAC) 2021', Wells Cathedral, Wells, Somerset, UK
2021 SGFA 'Centenary Exhibition Unlocked', The Mall Galleries, London, UK
2021 'Model / Maquette: Scale, Illusion and Space', The Cello Factory, London, UK
2020 ING Discerning Eye, virtual exhibition
2020 The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2020 Beep Painting Prize, Elysium Gallery, Swansea, Wales, UK
2019 'Promise & Ruin', NN Contemporary Art Northampton, Northampton, UK
2019 'Paint', PS Mirabel, Manchester, UK
2019 'Wells Art Contemporary (WAC) 2019', Wells Cathedral, Wells, Somerset, UK
2019 'Let's talk about the Anthropocene', University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
2019 'Perfectly Formed', Andelli Art Gallery, Wells, Somerset, UK
2018-19 'The Derwent Art Prize', The Mall Galleries, London; Trowbridge Arts; the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, Cumbria, UK
2018 'Second Floor Studios & Arts Painting Open 2018', No Format Gallery, London, UK
2018 'Wells Art Contemporary Awards 2018', Bishop’s Palace & Gardens, Wells, ...