Biography

My work uses a variety of media including painting, photography, digital imaging and installation to explore my subject, which is often myself and the ways in which I am viewed by others.

I was born in the United Kingdom in 1965 and have always been based here. I studied first at the Heatherley School of Fine Art and then at the University of Brighton, where I graduated with a First Class Honours degree in 1994. I have since exhibited work in group shows and solo exhibitions, which have been well documented by the media.

My work questions notions of physical normality and beauty, in a society that considers me to be deformed because I was born without arms. In my photographic work, I use light and shadow to create images with a sculptural quality reminiscent of classical statues. A particular influence has been the Venus de Milo, who is admired as one of the great classic beauties, despite having lost her own arms. My final year degree show installation, included photographs of myself as a child wearing artificial limbs and concluded in a self-portrait, posed as the Venus de Milo. This – one of my best known works – was re-exhibited at London's Photographer's Gallery in a Millennium Exhibition.

Since my pregnancy and the birth of my son Parys, I have produced a body of work, using photography and digital imaging, which aims to challenge society's preconceptions about motherhood and disability. These works have been exhibited at Fabrica, Brighton in 1999 and at Nottingham Castle Museum in 2000. In addition, Angel, which references the way in which people tend to look upon disability with reverence, has recently been purchased by Brighton Museum and will be on permanent display in the Body Gallery.

My work and life story have attracted considerable media attention. I have been featured on many national and international television and radio programmes, and have been documented in many newspaper and magazine articles. The documentary Alison’s Baby, about my life since Parys was born, has been shown worldwide and won the Prix Italia and Prix Leonardo.

In 2003 I won a Woman of the Year award in Spain and received the MBE in Britain for services to art.

Since Marc Quinn’s statue of me – Alison Lapper Pregnant – went on display in Trafalgar Square, London, in September 2005 media attention has intensified. My autobiography, My Life in MY Hands, was published in the same month and has been translated into German, Italian, Swedish, Japanese and Korean.

I also teach in the UK at day seminars and workshops both for the Mouth and Foot Painter's Association (of which I am a member) and various art colleges and student bodies. I continue to exhibit work in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican Centre, The Hayward Gallery, The Eyestorm Gallery and the Last Chance Centre in London, and in other UK venues such as The Red Herring Gallery in Brighton, Colchester University, and the M.F.P.A. Gallery in Selborne.

I continue to appear in BBC 1’s Child of Our Time series presented by Robert Winston and am currently preparing work for my next exhibition in my new studio in Sussex.

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