Alberta Whittle (born 1980,

Bridgetown Bridgetown (UN/LOCODE: BB BGI) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Barbados. Formerly The Town of Saint Michael, the Greater Bridgetown area is located within the Parishes of Barbados, parish of Saint Michael, Barbados, Saint Mic ...

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

) is a Barbadian-Scottish multidisciplinary artist who works across media: film, sculpture, print, installation and performance. She lives and works in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

. She was the winner of the Margaret Tait Award in 2018, winner of the Frieze Artist Award in 2020, received a

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

bursary, also in 2020, and represented Scotland at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2022.

Life and education

Whittle was born and grew up in Barbados, moving to

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

as a teenager, and later to Scotland to study. She gained an MFA from

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; ) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and design. These are all awa ...

in 2011 and she is undertaking a PhD at

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

. She is a research associate at th
Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre
situated at the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg, colloquially known as UJ, is a public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant fundi ...

Work

Alberta Whittle's work is concerned with questioning how history and society are constructed in the Western world. Her practice takes on the legacies of colonialism and slavery, and reflects upon black oppression and the way in which the racialised black body can carry markers of such oppression that may play out in an individual's mental or physical health. Her work is also concerned with environmental issues such as the climate crisis. Whittle talks about her move to the UK from the Caribbean as something that, for her, drew attention to the inequalities in the way in which history is captured and told by different nations. She says: 'I was really quite shocked, moving to the UK, going to school in Birmingham, and living and studying in Scotland, by how there was an acute absence of conversation or acknowledgement in terms of these intricate and uneasy relationships between Europe and the Americas, or Asia, or Africa. ..The privilege in avoiding these histories is something I found shocking and, I guess, hurtful. ..That level of inattention definitely galvanises so much of my work.'

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

*''Alberta Whittle: Business as Usual'', Tyburn Gallery, London (31 May - 27 June 2019) *''Alberta Whittle:'' ''How Flexible Can We Make the Mouth'',

Dundee Contemporary Arts Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) is an art centre in Dundee, Scotland, with two contemporary art galleries, a two-screen movie theater, cinema, a printmaking, print studio, a learning and public engagement programme, a shop and a café bar. The cur ...

, Dundee (14 September - 24 November 2019) *''Alberta Whittle: RESET'', Jupiter Artland, Scotland, (31 July - 31 October 2021) *''Alberta Whittle: Deep Dive (Pause) Uncoiling Memory,'' Scotland in Venice, Docks Cantieri Cucchini at the 59th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

, Venice (23 April – 27 November 2022)

Group exhibitions

* ''WHERE WE'RE AT: Other voices on gender,'' BOZAR, Brussels (18 June - 31 August 2014), *Johannesburg Pavilion at the 56th

, Venice (9 May - 22 November 2015) *''Embodied Spaces,'' FRAMER FRAMED, Amsterdam (18 June - 26 July 2015) *''Inner City'',

GoMA Goma is a city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the North Kivu, North Kivu Province; it is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu and shares borders with the Bukumu Chiefdo ...

, Glasgow (16 February - 11 November 2018) *''there's something in the conversation that is more interesting than the finality of (a title)'', The Showroom, London (28 March - 5 May 2018) *''Stalking The Image: Margaret Tait and Her Legacy'',

, Glasgow (8 November 2018 - 5 May 2019) *Alberta Whittle and Emilio Bianchic, ''Useless'', Pig Rock Bothy, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (13 - 21 April 2019) * 13th Havana Biennale, Cuba (12 April - 12 May 2019) *Alberta Whittle and Hardeep Pandhal, ''Transparency'', Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh (18 October 2019 - 5 January 2020) *''Sonia Boyce: In the Castle of my Skin'', Eastside Projects, Birmingham (25 January - 11 April 2020, original dates, disrupted due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

) *''Here Be Dragons'', Copperfield, London (22 September - 31 October 2020) *''between a whisper and a cry,'' Open Eye Gallery for

Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Since its launch in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 380 new artworks and presented work by over 530 artists from around the world. ...

11th Edition (20 March - 27 June 2021, original dates disrupted due to

) *''Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism,'' Glasgow Women's Library, (14 August - 16 October 2021)

Collections

Alberta Whittle's work is part of the following collections: * The

National Galleries of Scotland The National Galleries of Scotland (, sometimes also known as National Galleries Scotland) is the executive non-departmental public body that controls the three national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries, forming one of the Nation ...

collections *

Glasgow Museums Glasgow Museums is the group of museums and galleries owned by the City of Glasgow, Scotland. They hold about 1.6 million objects including over 60,000 art works, over 200,000 items in the human history collections, over 21,000 items relating to ...

Collections * The UK Arts Council Collection *

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

* The Contemporary Art Research Collection at

Awards

* Margaret Tait Award, 2018 with the video work ''between a whisper and a cry'' * Frieze Artist Award, 2020 *

bursary, 2020 *

Henry Moore Foundation The Henry Moore Foundation is a registered charity in England, established for education and promotion of the fine arts — in particular, to advance understanding of the works of Henry Moore, and to promote the public appreciation of sculpt ...

Artist Award, 2020

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whittle, Alberta 1980 births Living people Artists from Glasgow Black British artists Black British culture