Alison Holt ASGFA

Biography 

Alison Holt is a textile artist who combines silk painting with free-motion machine embroidery to create richly layered surfaces and textures. Using a basic sewing machine as a drawing tool, each stitch is like a textured brushstroke. She produces detailed and expressive studies inspired by landscapes and the natural world.
Alisons art reflects her fascination with pattern, light and colour. She aims to capture a moment and a memory, driven by the need to explore and record what she sees

Born and based in Oswestry, Shropshire, England, Alison completed a Foundation Course at Shrewsbury School of Art in 1976 and has a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Textiles from Goldsmiths College London qualifying in 1979. She exhibited in Texprint `79 as one of the years 30 most promising graduates.

With a career spanning 40 years as a textile artist, tutor and author of 5 books on her practice Alison has taught and exhibited widely in the UK, Australia, NZ and Europe.

Her recent exhibitions include:

The Broderers’ Exhibition: The Art of Embroidery, Bankside Gallery

Royal Society of Graphic Fine Art, Royal Society of Marine Artists, Discerning Eye, Royal Society of British Artists, all at the Mall Galleries

The Drawing Prize and Summer Exhibition, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.

In 2023 at the RSMA she won the Charles Pears Award and more recently in 2026 at the SGFA she won the Pure Art Prize.

Alison says “I use an old (1965) basic Bernina sewing machine, it simply makes the stitches while I manoeuvre the silk painted background under the needle. I consider myself a fine artist who has colour, line and texture to play with: a painter that uses threads, an artist that draws with a sewing machine.