Alec Cumming
Alec Cumming’s paintings dance between movement and stillness — bold, sun-drenched abstractions capturing the rhythm of colour, light, and place.
Message
Alec Cumming (b. 1986, Norwich, UK) is a British painter celebrated for his bold use of colour, playful abstraction, and a deep engagement with place and atmosphere. His work captures the vivid intersection between memory, culture, and environment—translating fleeting experiences of light, rhythm, and architecture into immersive, expressive canvases.
A graduate of Norwich University of the Arts (BA Hons Fine Art, 2007), Cumming has developed an international career that bridges East and West. After establishing a studio at the Niv Art Centre in South Delhi, he spent three transformative years in India, where the intensity of colour, texture, and urban life became central to his visual language. His cross-cultural perspective continues to shape his practice, blending the lyrical informality of British painting traditions with the vibrancy and immediacy of South Asian modernism.
Cumming has exhibited widely in the UK, Europe, India, and the United States. He was the youngest artist to hold a solo exhibition with the British Council in India and has been featured in nine editions of the India Art Fair, where he was named “One to Watch” in 2016. His 2017 residency with Dyad Creative—produced in collaboration with museums in India and The South Asia Collection in the UK—culminated in Dialogues with India, a monumental series of mural-scale works exploring memory and material narrative.
In recent years, Cumming has extended his practice to Los Angeles and Cyprus, exhibiting with The Edit Gallery and participating in international art fairs. His paintings are held in private and public collections across the world, known for their sense of openness, joy, and curiosity—an invitation to pause within the noise of modern life and rediscover the colour in ordinary moments.
Now based in the countryside near Norwich, Alec Cumming continues to work between the UK and abroad, creating paintings that resonate with a universal language of movement, emotion, and light.
Statement
I draw inspiration from a global map of experiences, shaped significantly by several years spent working in India and my ongoing explorations of places like California and Sri Lanka. My work, primarily oil on canvas, presents abstract and semi recognisable imagery that dances across the surface. I aim to create vibrant, playful, and pleasurable experiences that explore how fleeting moments in the physical world translate into paint.
I am particularly driven by a desire to explore how light in these locations defines a composition. I’m drawn to that bright, harsh light that makes colours pop and resonate, or the soft, shimmering haze of a hot afternoon. I want my paintings to carry that same resonance. This way of painting allows me the immense pleasure of observing the world and translating its energy onto a surface.
Recently, I find myself reflecting on the staggeringly different visual stimuli of my continued travels and how they intersect with my current surroundings. I build a "bank" of imagery through drawings, photographs, and sketchbook entries, constantly questioning how these disparate influences can merge into a "pan-global" vocabulary. For me, the canvas is a space for a back and forth, between memories and moments some that existed, and some that are born in the studio.
Within my paintings, there are shapes and forms that suggest a narrative without strictly defining it. I love how these semi recognisable elements allow different scenarios to play out for the viewer, depending on how they decipher the "things" I’ve laid down.
My work might suggest a specific fabric, the architecture of a city street, a glimpse of a poolside afternoon, or a table laden with drinks and paraphernalia. These are the everyday moments we engage in when we are at our most calm. Ultimately, I am fascinated by that curious thing the brain does when the eye lingers focusing on a single point of reference that, whether consciously or subconsciously, brings a sense of satisfaction.