We are extremely fortunate to be able to welcome Edinburgh-based artist Dette Allmark who presents Petite Mort: Death, Desire and Motherhood - a solo exhibition of imaginative, large-scale drawings whereby Dette makes sense of the world in an instinctive, imaginative and very personal way.
In her work, the contradictions of female experience become both playful and deeply emotional, allowing personal, historical and psychological myths to intertwine. Through this process, Dette explores the profound identity shifts of motherhood, grief and desire. Through fantastical, theatrical tapestries, Petite Mort challenges the systemic myth that maternal devotion cannot coexist with raw desire, fierce ambition and profound vulnerability.
Dette’s work rejects idealised allegory to expose a raw autobiographical undercurrent. The drawings process a protracted, compound grief sharpened by personal illness, the isolating reality of lone parenthood and a decade-long erosion of familial support stolen by Alzheimer’s disease. In precisely staging the unrelenting fight to survive displacement, systemic scrutiny and the unanchored domesticity of living in temporary accommodation throughout this entire ten-year period, Dette forces a visceral confrontation with the brutal, beautiful truths of contemporary female identity and the profound vulnerability of solitary guardianship.
Dette Allmark studied fine art at the Edinburgh College of Art, before undertaking postgraduate studies at the Royal Drawing School. Over a career spanning more than two decades, she has been awarded prestigious accolades including the Royal Drawing School Scholarship, the Andrew Grant Scholarship and the James Cumming Drawing Award - with her work subsequently acquired by the Royal Scottish Academy Collection and the King's Collection. Her practice features highly sought-after residencies, including the Résidence-Atelier Trélex in Switzerland, The King’s Gallery “Renaissance” Exhibition and Dumfries House plus a solo exhibition with Scottish Opera at the Festival Theatre last year. She was commissioned by the late composer Nigel Morgan for a collaboration of images to accompany his words to music project.