LONDON, ENGLAND.- The National Gallery is delighted to announce that Alison Watt has agreed to become its seventh Associate Artist. Born in Greenock in 1965, Watt is a painter who studied at the Glasgow School of Art. In 2000 she became the youngest artist to be offered a solo exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Her recent work demonstrates a deep fascination with the possibilities of the suggestive power of fabric. A childhood trip to London to visit the National Gallery resulted in a lifelong admiration for Ingres's great portrait of 'Madame Moitessier', a picture that has been a constant source of inspiration for her.

In 2003 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Painting Prize with work that was moving ever more towards the abstract yet had a strange, sensual quality that is evocative of a human presence.

Watt exhibited most recently during the 2004 Edinburgh Festival, installing a monumental 12ft painting in the memorial chapel of Old St Paul's Church for which she received the A.C.E. award for art in a religious space in 2005. Also in 2005 she took part in the prestigious Glenfiddich residency.

She is now working on her next project, 'Dark Light', supported by the Scottish Arts Council.

The Associate Artist is appointed for a period of two years with the brief of making new work that relates to the National Gallery's collection.

Alison Watt has just started working in a studio at the National Gallery, and her work will be exhibited in the Sunley Room in Spring 2008.