Alison Harper is co-Founder and Artistic Director of The Essential School of Painting in London, an independent art school dedicated to Painting and contemporary Fine Art practice with an outstanding faculty of well-known painters as tutors.Engaging with contemporary ideas in art and embracing the need for high quality tuition in painting and drawing The Essential School of Painting provides students with an opportunity to learn from and with established painters and multi-disciplinary artists. The benefits to art students of community and mentoring by committed artists are the twin ideals by which TheEsop operates to nourish and advance painting and fine art practice in the 21st century at a time when painting in particular in art schools is rarely taught and tutor contact time across fine art at an all time low. Alison graduated from Glasgow School of Art with First Class Honours in 1985 and as one of the "Glasgow Girls” was part of the resurgence in figurative painting emerging at that time. Alison won a Norwegian Govt Postgraduate Scholarship to study at Kunst Akadamie Oslo 85 - 86 and in 1993 a Commonwealth Scholarship to paint in India for two years at MS University Baroda Faculty of Fine Art. Alison was visiting lecturer in Painting at Glasgow School of Art 1986 - 1993 taking up a part-time lectureship in Painting and Printmaking there between 1995 - 2002. Selected exhibitions; Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy, National Portrait Gallery, Leicester City Art Gallery, Stirling Museum, Graphic Museum of Tokyo, India Today Gallery, Dehli. The recipient of many awards and prizes she is included in Who’s Who in Art 2006, 2010, 2014, 2016, Who’s Who of Women in the World 2010. Recent projects:Invited artist at the Royal Scottish Academy annual show with "Life of the Buddha" 2016Co-author Drawing and Painting for Contemporary artists Thames and Hudson 2015 Art Consultant: BBC One’s The Big Painting Challenge 2015, 2016, 2017Art Consultant: BBC iWonder “Can a self-taught artist make it in the art world?”2015