Alice Anna Ford is an interdisciplinary artist working across drawing, painting, publishing, film, and installation.
Her practice explores how artworks can act as value-recalibrating machines.
Her machines aim to change how humans perceive themselves as isolated from the ecological and the seasonal, relating the more-than-human, the built, and forgotten lively companions using familiar mechanical devices: detailed instruction, manuals, and codices.
Working between digital and analogue processes, Ford constructs vibrant, compelling scenes, tangling mediums—holding and binding contrasting concepts and subjects with stylistic precision, saturated colour, and fine detail.
Her work draws on spatial and systematic thinking shaped by her background in architecture, engaging in a constant questioning of disciplinary boundaries.
Since 2021, Ford has collaborated with artists and institutions across Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Italy. She is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Western Australia, supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
In 2026, she started Unthing Press, an Australian artist-run publishing house dedicated to experimental fiction art-as-artefact publications, creative practice fiction and experimental writing. Founded in South West Australia, the press supports projects grounded in quality, tactility, and conceptual clarity, publishing a curated selection of finite editions — ‘unthings’ — for collectors and the wider arts community.
Her first publication, The Pigment Pictures, will be published in 2026.
Selected Exhibitions
The Pigment Pictures, The Big Blue House - Margaret River Regions Open Studios, Australia (2026). Forest Atlas, Moores Building FAC, Australia (2023). The Yoke, Arts Itoya, Japan (2022). Unthings, Studio Kura, Japan (2022).
Awards and Talks
Spectrums, Invited Speaker as an Emerging Practitioner (3 Under 40), Australian Institute of Architects, Emerging Architects and Graduates Network (EmAGN) WA (2025). Reimagining Where We Live, First Place for Scales of Care as part of Super Natural Studio with LM2A Architects (2024). EG Cohen Medal, Australian Institute of Architects (2022).
Representation
Ashlyn Jada Koh
Sad Cowgirl Tours
hello@firstblocksounds.com.au
DOWNLOAD FULL CV (ACADEMIC) PDF
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Unthing Press and the Artefact Codex operate on Wadandi and Whadjuk Noongar Country in Western Australia. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
All works remain the intellectual property of the artist. Reproduction or distribution requires written permission © Alice Anna Ford