Biography

Click here to view a short video on Alison Higgs

I was born in Reading Berkshire U.K. in 1959. Reading is a large town nestled amongst the Thames and Kennet Rivers. I was born in a terraced house in Cranbury Road. My paternal grandmother Ada Francis Higgs (nee Fishlock) lived two doors down. My maternal grandparents owned the Whitehouse, a pub in the nearby village of Tilehurst, which housed remnant souls of an English country life that’d become extinct years before my birth I suspect.

"These old fellows would play cribbage and drink in the saloon dressed in rough looking hounds tooth and herringbone, they’d snort ochre snuff out of delicate little boxes, and they smelt of some exotic spicy tang, perhaps a mix of snuff, whisky, tobacco and pickled onions. Their customs too were quaint; my grandfather would pour his tea into a saucer to drink out of and then he slurped it noisily. I always tried not to laugh, as I didn't like to offend. He also never ate with a fork, only using the knife to eat with."

I went to Park Lane primary school, sang in the choir and I believe I had a rich cultural life. I was surrounded by a huge family (some eccentrics were scattered among them. I remember one bizarre old woman called Bunny Ostrich who made quite an impression upon me because of this hat that she must have fashioned for her self out of found objects. A spring with the eyeball dangling from it was my favourite bit). I came across a well-known book a few years ago called Visions of a Berkshire Village, paintings by Stanley Spencer, which hit a chord with me because the richness of life portrayed in his work captured the life I remember, a culture that’s past now, however his work also had a bit of the darkness and hardship of the war years that preceded my memory. My family had for generations lived in that district, I felt pretty entrenched.

When I was 10 my family emigrated to Tuggerah, NSW Australia. I was too young to feel any loss of people or place but I was aware of the difference culturally and climatically. I particularly remember the smell and humidity of Sydney, just out of the airport, like a big-drugged sweet exotic fruit. The sky clean and very blue it felt strange and different to the snowy march weather we’d just left. Tuggerah in 1970 was a dairy and orchard district with a lot of native bush and wildlife all around. A charming difference for me was being enrolled at Tuggerah primary, a two-roomed country school where all the kids knew each other and we could run around bare foot and play in the bush. We sang along to school radio broadcasts. ‘Behold the Lord High Executioner’ was a big favourite by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Our house was surrounded by virgin bush inhabited back then by goannas, ring-tailed possums, echidnas, catbirds and wonga pigeons. There could be micro bats in the garage and fireflies in the house; we’d turn of the lights to watch. Every now and then a social would be held in the local hall. A band would play, kids would run around and the adults would drink and dance and catch up with each other. Pristine beaches and lagoons surrounded the place usually empty of people. I had a very good time. Wyong High was not so pleasant, being a bigger school, however, I majored in Fine art and had 3 excellent and passionate art teachers.

I left as soon as possible and gained a place at Hornsby TAFE studying Art and Design under Clem Milward. I hadn’t had enough of it I guess as I continued on by doing a Diploma of Fine Art at Caulfield Institute in Melbourne. I continued to draw, mainly in pencil during a long spell back in Sydney I worked at anything in order to save up for travelling with my partner at the time. We traversed the continent on a motorbike and I found that writing poetry suited me better at the time. Later on we settled in Perth and I landed a govt job and I died for a while. I took up the violin and classical guitar as a lifeline for several years, but still continued to do monoprints and a bit of drawing.

1989 I finally gave up working full time and decided to apply myself to painting as an experiment and entered my first paintings into a prize in the country town of Harvey. Hard to explain but I was fearful to exhibit my paintings. The Harvey Open Art prize was not the forum for my work but they caused a stir and gained me special comment from the judge, which gave me the confidence to enter a portrait into the 1998 Garden City Atwell Portraiture Prize in Perth. I was so unsure and fearful of not being picked to exhibit that I didn’t have the heart to turn up to the opening. Oddly enough the 3 judges unanimously picked my painting as the winner and I used the winnings to travel to Whyalla S.A. to paint the BHPs’ Pellet Plant. I also gained some commissioned work because of the win, which I gladly accepted.

I painted about 13 paintings at Whyalla and wangled an exhibition at the Middleback theatre. I called the exhibition “Pheromones and Chemicals” Another offshoot of my winning the Atwell prize was that the portrait was used as in a high school tertiary entrance exam training in Image Analysis which subsequently turned up as a supplement in ‘The West Australian’ newspaper Also whilst in W.A I approached Tim Winton and Tom Hungerford in order to paint them. They both allowed me to do so, surprisingly, and it was wonderful to spend a bit of time with them. I returned to NSW in 2000 and gained f/t work in Sydney and was disciplined enough to work on a project based upon some artwork I’d commenced during our travels to Jurien Bay and the North West. I put these works into various prizes on the mid north coast and I had some good results with those in wins and sales. I also gained some more portraiture work.I was approached by Taree Regional Gallery to hold an exhibition. It turned out to be a successful exhibition and also surprised me because I realized that people like to see very personal imagery.

In 2008 a local magazine called Focus approached me for an article, followed by anther North coast lifestyle magazine called Coast and then a real estate agency wanted some works for their glossy quarterly mag. 2009 was offered a grant and exhibition by Manning Valley Council to have a second exhibition with 3 other painters at Taree regional gallery. 2010 Invited to enter a painting into the Frank Saxby Bequest. Local and non-local more established artists are invited to exhibit work in order for the Manning Council to purchase work. I was very impressed to be invited as one of my paintings got to hang about on a wall with some work by Chris O’Doherty and other notables that I admire.