Artist, Designer, Yoga Practitioner
I have had the privilage of working internationally as an artist and as a designer and director for theatre and films, as an art director for commerials and as as arts consultant in collaboration with architects, and planners on a number of major local and government projects and studies, particularly in Australia, where I was appointed as the first Administrative Director of the Perth Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA).
I have taught art in London secondary schools and have lectured in art and design at graduate and postgraduate level for many colleges and universities in the U.K. including the Slade, UCL London, as well as at The Centre for Performing Arts, Curtin University and WA Academy of Performing Arts in Australia.
After a life threatening car accident in 1972 I became interested in alternative methods of recuperation including yoga and homœopathy and trained as a Yoga Therapist at the Yoga Biomedical Trust in London where I developed a particular interest in working with people with disabilities and special needs. At the same time I was working on a range of film and video projects, mixed media works and black and white photographs shown in Germany and London and designing ballets in Japan and Argentina.
The Artist at Work
After working as a yoga practioner and opening and running a yoga studio in Newry, N. Ireland for nearly fifteen years, Five years ago I returned to a more personal arts practice and, with the aid of a grant from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, I created a body of new work entitled Falling or Flying - this was first shown as a solo exhibition but several of the works have since been shown in joint live and virtual exhibitions and several of the prints incorporate AR (Augmented Reality) which creates another dimension to an otherwise static image. Several of the prints have been sold to government organisations as well as privately. In 2019 I was an artist-in-residence at Creative Spark in Dundalk and at The Belfast Print Workshop, where I worked on stone based lithographs. For my next exhibition: Remembering or Forgetting, I am working on aluminium plates.
In 2022 I became the part time Artistic Director of Light Theatre Company CIC (LTC) dedicated to producing high quality theatre experiences in unusual settings, with the long term objective of designing and building a transportable theatre structure. Production for LTC have recently centred on James Joyce’s Ulysses, in celebration of the centenary of the publication of this seminal novel.
Design by Livankha © Alistair Livingstone 2022