Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Fine Art)

Thesis title: Transformations of the flesh; rupturing embodiment through biotechnology.

Research: This project is an artistic exploration of the potential of biological technology upon human physicality and identity. The work responds to changing concepts of nature and self in regards to biomedical development, and alludes to forms of otherness incorporating tissue cultured forms into non-living sculptural objects.

Biography: Alicia King moved from Brisbane to Hobart in 2001, to continue a Bachelor of Fine Arts, which she completed with 1st Class Honours. In 2004 she undertook independent research into tissue engineered sculpture and biological art at SymbioticA, The Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory, in Perth, Western Australia, before being awarded a Postgraduate Scholarship, to commence a PhD, in art/sci sculpture. King is currently affiliated with the UTAS School of Medicine, where she is growing semi-living sculptural forms, through human tissue culture techniques (soon to be her own skin tissue), as part of her PhD. She has exhibited at The National Museum of Australia, Canberra in 2004; The Whitehouse, Brisbane, and CAST, Hobart, in 2005; INFLIGHT Gallery, Hobart, and Linden Gallery, Melbourne, in 2006. In June 2006 King traveled to Amsterdam to speak at Close Encounters, The Fourth Biannual European Conference for Science Literature and the Arts, and made her first hot glass ‘blob’ sculptures at the Vrij Glas Foundation.

In 2006 King received a NAVA Visual Arts and Crafts Grant for a solo exhibition at the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; an Arts Tasmania New Media Industry Grant, for a Residency at The Arts and Genomics Centre, Amsterdam, and an Australia Council Emerging Artists Grant for a Residency at the Vrij Glass Foundation, also in Amsterdam.

King was also an invited artist at the Human Biotechnology and Public Trust Conference, at Swinburne University Melbourne, where she exhibited the work on and on while you're gone, which was reviewed in Artlink Magazine in Dec 2006.

Study trajectory:
2003 BFA Hons - 1st Class, University of Tasmania
2000- 2003 BFA, Queensland College of Art (QCA) and UTAS.

Image details: '...on and on while you're gone' 2006 He_la cell line, Glass, Resin, Silicone. 170 x 95 x 50cms.