Alison Ward Heinemeier

Biography

As an artist, Alison’s practice combines traditional art making with performance projects that reach a diverse range of audiences. Her performances blend elaborate baroque costuming with physical performances that are inspired by wrestling and boxing.  In 1997 she created Tex and Trixie’s Vaudeville Show, paving the way for New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scene. In 2001 she helped found The Glamazons, a burlesque troupe challenging the norms of feminine beauty. In 2009 she helped build The Waterpod, a floating eco­habitat that she and two other artists inhabited for five months. From 2008 to 2011 she performed in and around New York City with her punk band  The Ruffian Arms, whose gender­bending punk aesthetic delights and challenges audiences on all levels.

Exhibitions include the Queens Museum, The Dumbo Arts Center, the Bronx Museum, the CCCB Museum in Spain, RAW Space Gallery in Australia and Castlefield Gallery in England. She has done residencies at Raw Space in Australia, The Artist in the Marketplace Program, and the LMCC studio program, The Waterpod Project in New York City,  LMCC’s Swing Space Program, Flux Factory in NewYork City and the Islington Mill in Manchester. She has received grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Lewisham Arts council in London as well as the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Idea Fund in Houston.