Alistair Gentry is a writer and artist or an artist and writer… sometimes other things, too. The work he makes for publication, performance, broadcast and installation is often “subversive” (SFX), at times “startling” (The Independent) and occasionally even “fascinating” (The Times). Wikipedia classifies him as a “Science Fiction Artist”. He is the author of two novels, has been artist in residence at the University of Edinburgh’s Genomics Policy & Research Forum, exhibited his films at La Biennale di Venezia, been awarded the Berwick Gymnasium Artist Fellowship by English Heritage and Arts Council England, and worked extensively in China and Japan. In 2010 he wrote a successful memoir of being a fairly unsuccessful artist, Career Suicide. He accidentally set up the planet Earth’s number one online source for the full and unexpurgated erotic letters of James Joyce.

His inspiration comes from historical and contemporary folklore, esoterica and Forteana of Britain, Europe and Asia, traditional oratory and storytelling, legitimate mainstream sciences and the fringe or pseudo-sciences that go along with them. He likes creepy old mannequins, broken toys, silly costumes, museums, absurdity and making technology do things its manufacturers wouldn’t approve of. Read a 2011 interview with him by fellow writer and artist Iain Aitch here or a 2014 interview related to his touring live show Magickal Realism here.

Find out more about Alistair’s projects for b-side below.