Sharon Alston worked at the magazine ”[[Broadsheet (magazine)|Broadsheet]]”, a monthly feminist magazine founded by four women, [[Anne Else]], [[Sandra Coney]], Rosemary Ronald, and Kitty Wishart in 1972. <ref name=”Knudde2025″>{{Cite web |title=Sharon Alston |url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/alston_sharon.htm |access-date=2025-11-15 |website=lambiek.net |language=en}}</ref> She would work at ”Broadsheet” from 1973 until the early 1990s, designing the magazine covers, providing illustrations for articles, making comic strips, and creating various posters and flyers.<ref name=”Knudde2025″ />
Sharon Alston worked at the magazine ”[[Broadsheet (magazine)|Broadsheet]]”, a monthly feminist magazine founded by four women, [[Anne Else]], [[Sandra Coney]], Rosemary Ronald, and Kitty Wishart in 1972. <ref name=”Knudde2025″>{{Cite web |title=Sharon Alston |url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/alston_sharon.htm |access-date=2025-11-15 |website=lambiek.net |language=en}}</ref> She would work at ”Broadsheet” from 1973 until the early 1990s, designing the magazine covers, providing illustrations for articles, making comic strips, and creating various posters and flyers.<ref name=”Knudde2025″ />
Alston’s most famous piece was ”My Bloody Hand”, a watercolor painting produced in 1979 about the processes of menstruation and lesbian sex. This work, which aimed to make menstruation and lesbian sexuality more visible, was featured in ”A Women’s Picture Book”, a 1988 collection of feminist women’s art, and would be important in exhibiting one of the book’s themes, lesbian expression.<ref name=”Evans 1988″>{{Cite book |last= |first= |title=A Woman’s Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa (New Zealand) |publisher=Spiral / Government Printing Office |year=1988 |isbn=0477013953 |editor-last=Evans |editor-first=Marian |location=Wellington |pages= |editor-last2=Lonie |editor-first2=Bridie |editor-last3=Lloyd |editor-first3=Tilly}}</ref> She used the metaphor of a bloody hand to explore sensual, emotional qualities of what it meant to be a lesbian in New Zealand at the time, confronting aspects of New Zealand culture which enforced safe, heteronormative ideals.<ref name=”:0″>{{Cite journal |last=Collard |first=Judith |date=2006 |title=Spiral Women: Locating Lesbian Activism in New Zealand Feminist Art, 1975-1992 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4629655 |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=292–320 |issn=1043-4070}}</ref>
Alston’s most famous piece was ”My Bloody Hand”, a watercolor painting produced in 1979 about the processes of menstruation and lesbian sex. This work, which aimed to make menstruation and lesbian sexuality more visible, was featured in ”A Women’s Picture Book”, a 1988 collection of feminist women’s art lesbian expression.<ref name=”Evans 1988″>{{Cite book |last= |first= |title=A Woman’s Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa (New Zealand) |publisher=Spiral / Government Printing Office |year=1988 |isbn=0477013953 |editor-last=Evans |editor-first=Marian |location=Wellington |pages= |editor-last2=Lonie |editor-first2=Bridie |editor-last3=Lloyd |editor-first3=Tilly}}</ref> She used the metaphor of a bloody hand to explore sensual, emotional qualities of what it meant to be a lesbian in New Zealand at the time, confronting aspects of New Zealand culture which enforced safe, heteronormative ideals.<ref name=”:0″>{{Cite journal |last=Collard |first=Judith |date=2006 |title=Spiral Women: Locating Lesbian Activism in New Zealand Feminist Art, 1975-1992 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4629655 |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=292–320 |issn=1043-4070}}</ref>
Some of Alston’s other works included the installations ”Frolicking in the Valleys of Death” and ”Ironical Journey”, both made for the 1981 [[Women’s Gallery]] in New Zealand. These focus more on themes separate from her identity as a lesbian artist. ”Frolicking in the Valleys of Death” pictured sheep in patterns on fields of grass and across the New Zealand flag, while ”Ironical Journey” was a hastily put together structure composed of iron. While ”Frolicking in the Valleys of Death” was received as an educational piece on days when the New Zealand flag was flown by the government, ”Ironical Journey” was a more unserious piece, built for the sole purpose of being destroyed.<ref name=”Evans20012″ />
Some of Alston’s other works included the installations ”Frolicking in the Valleys of Death” and ”Ironical Journey”, both made for the 1981 [[Women’s Gallery]] in New Zealand. These focus more on themes separate from her identity as a lesbian artist. ”Frolicking in the Valleys of Death” pictured sheep in patterns on fields of grass and across the New Zealand flag, while ”Ironical Journey” was a hastily put together structure composed of iron. While ”Frolicking in the Valleys of Death” was received as an educational piece on days when the New Zealand flag was flown by the government, ”Ironical Journey” was a more unserious piece, built for the sole purpose of being destroyed.<ref name=”Evans20012″ />
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Sharon Alston (13 March 1948 – 11 February 1995) was a New Zealand artist and lesbian feminist. She is most known for illustrating covers, posters, flyers, and comics for the New Zealand feminist magazine Broadsheet.[1] Alston was also a leading member of the Women’s Art Collective in Auckland and an early member of Auckland’s Gay Liberation Front.[2]
Alston’s artistry was especially concerned with feminism. In the watercolor piece titled My Bloody Hand (1979), she aimed to make menstruation and lesbian sexuality more visible.[2] The piece was set to be included in A Women’s Picture Book (1988) to acknowledge the presence of lesbians in feminist circles. Despite pushback from anthropologist and writer Irihapeti Ramsden and other female Māori contributors due to the piece’s potential breaking of tapu, My Bloody Hand was included in the book. Two of Alston’s art installations, entitled Frolicking in the Valleys of Death and Ironical Journey, were exhibited in the 1981 New Zealand Women’s Gallery.[3]
Artistic Career / Works
[edit]
Sharon Alston worked at the magazine Broadsheet, a monthly feminist magazine founded by four women, Anne Else, Sandra Coney, Rosemary Ronald, and Kitty Wishart in 1972. [1] She would work at Broadsheet from 1973 until the early 1990s, designing the magazine covers, providing illustrations for articles, making comic strips, and creating various posters and flyers.[1]
Alston’s most famous piece was My Bloody Hand, a watercolor painting produced in 1979 about the processes of menstruation and lesbian sex. This work, which aimed to make menstruation and lesbian sexuality more visible, was featured in A Women’s Picture Book, a 1988 collection of feminist women’s art that centrally explored lesbian expression.[4] She used the metaphor of a bloody hand to explore sensual, emotional qualities of what it meant to be a lesbian in New Zealand at the time, confronting aspects of New Zealand culture which enforced safe, heteronormative ideals.[2]
Some of Alston’s other works included the installations Frolicking in the Valleys of Death and Ironical Journey, both made for the 1981 Women’s Gallery in New Zealand. These focus more on themes separate from her identity as a lesbian artist. Frolicking in the Valleys of Death pictured sheep in patterns on fields of grass and across the New Zealand flag, while Ironical Journey was a hastily put together structure composed of iron. While Frolicking in the Valleys of Death was received as an educational piece on days when the New Zealand flag was flown by the government, Ironical Journey was a more unserious piece, built for the sole purpose of being destroyed.[3]
Alston made significant contributions to feminist activist movements in New Zealand as well. She was among the first people to sign up for Auckland’s Gay Liberation Front, an activism movement started in 1972 to advocate for gay and lesbian rights in New Zealand. The movement was inspired by the young lesbian student Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, who mobilized a crowd of 40 people to declare the beginning of their movement in front of the press.[5]
In a 1973 speech before a delegation of women’s liberation members, Alston openly announced she was a lesbian and advocated for the rights of lesbians worldwide. This speech would be published in the June issue of Broadsheet later that year, within a section labelled ‘Gay Pride.’ In 1976, Alston advocated for women’s bodily autonomy when dealing with issues surrounding abortion.[1]
Alston came out in her teens as a lesbian to supportive parents. However, she spent a large portion of her early life in the closet to others outside her family. Despite being part of Auckland’s Gay Liberation Front most of her work did not engage with her lesbian identity. Her most famous work My Bloody Hand was an outlier, which aimed to explore sexuality, and her attraction to women. Alston found a life partner in Robbie Champtaloup. Alston was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 45 in 1994 and passed away in early 1995. At the end of her life Alston felt she was not as well known as she would have liked. [1]
Legacy and influence
[edit]
Sharon Alston’s legacy and influence was minimally recognized in the history of lesbian and feminist art. Marian Evans, a fellow activist and artist, observed that Alston had “not accomplished all that she had hoped for.”[3] Aorewa McLeod whome wrote Alston’s obiturary quoted that in her final farewell to her friends she stated “I have not honoured my creativity.” Also coming to the realization that she had ran out of time and no longer had the opportunity to become the “famous painter” she had hoped for. [3] Her work nonetheless left an impact on the lesbian community in New Zealand, as many of her peers remembered her as compassionate, funny, and stylish.[3]
Alston was, a part of a major feminist art scholarship of the1970’s. In Anne Kirker’s book New Zealand Women Artists: A Survey of 150 Years, lists Alston amongst the women contributing to the development of feminist artistic practices in New Zealand, giving her credit for her role in shaping women-centered creative spaces.[6] Yet, this form of recognition did not translate into wider public visibility. Her work has consistently remained outside mainstream art narratives of her time and found soley within New Zealand, partly due to historical patterns of erasure and uneven documentation in lesbian and feminist art archiving at that time.[3]
Alston’s involvement as a graphic contributor with Broadsheet magazine and the Women’s Gallery aligns with what Sydney J. Shep describes as “shifting agency”, giving power and the ability to define oneself back to the people who were historically denied it.[7] Alston promoted her feminist ideals through platforms alotted to her through her career in publishing and as a creator of visual collectives. She helped create opportunities and an infrastructure for other women and lesbians to produce and share their artwork[4].
Alston’s legacy, therefore, is increasingly understood through the relational and cultural networks she personally sustained and expanded before her passing. Recent scholarship continues to recall her contributions as part of the broader history of lesbian and feminist art collectives in New Zealand.[7]
- ^ a b c d e “Sharon Alston”. lambiek.net. Retrieved 2025-11-15.
- ^ a b c Collard, Judith (2006). “Spiral Women: Locating Lesbian Activism in New Zealand Feminist Art, 1975-1992”. Journal of the History of Sexuality. 15 (2): 292–320. ISSN 1043-4070.
- ^ a b c d e f Marian Evans, “Lesbian Landscapes: A Little Oral History,” Women’s Studies Journal 17, no. 2 (2001): 102–119.
- ^ a b Evans, Marian; Lonie, Bridie; Lloyd, Tilly, eds. (1988). A Woman’s Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Wellington: Spiral / Government Printing Office. ISBN 0477013953.
- ^ Etz, Rebecca. “Sounding Out Community: Meanings of Community, Identity and Difference Among Lesbians Living in New Zealand.” PhD., diss., Rutgers University, 2004.
- ^ Anne Kirker, New Zealand Women Artists: A Survey of 150 Years (Tortola, BVI: Craftsman House, 1993).
- ^ a b Shep, Sydney J. (2024-12-31), “33 Shifting Agency: Feminist Publishing Collectives in Aotearoa New Zealand”, The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900–2020, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 676–693, ISBN 978-1-3995-0035-7, retrieved 2025-11-24
- Collard, Judith. “Spiral Women: Locating Lesbian Activism in New Zealand Feminist Art, 1975-1992.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 15, no. 2 (2006): 292-320.
- Evans, Marian. “Lesbian Landscapes: A Little Oral History.” Women’s Studies Journal 17, no. 2 (2001).
- Evans, Marian; Lonie, Bridie; Lloyd, Tilly, eds. A Woman’s Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Wellington: Spiral/Government Printing Office, 1988.
- Etz, Rebecca. “Sounding Out Community: Meanings of Community, Identity and Difference Among Lesbians Living in New Zealand.” PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2004.
- Kirker, Anne. New Zealand Women Artists: A Survey of 150 Years. Craftsman House, 1993.
- Lambiek. “Sharon Alston”. Last modified 2025-05-06. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/alston_sharon.htm.
- Shep, Sydney J.. “Shifting Agency: Feminist Publishing Collectives in Aotearoa New Zealand.” The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900-2020 (2001): 676-693.
