Alicia Philley
Austin, TX
Alicia Philley has developed an abstract language steeped in color theory and the tools of Op Art to tell personal, yet simultaneously universal, stories.
Message
Having lived and worked in Austin, Texas for almost 15 years, Philley’s creative practice is deeply rooted in the local landscape's greenbelt trails, creeks, and neighborhood gardens. With her painted vocabulary of precise, yet flowing, linework she explores lifecycles, nature's chronicle of time, and the ways our environment influences memory and emotional health. The vibrant hues in her paintings, digital mixed-media and recent sculptural works create an experience of illusionistic space, pattern, and reflective light.
Her work leans into the simplicities and nuances of color theory—which she studied in the BFA painting program at Hunter College, NYC (2005). Philley also holds a BA in journalism from Southern Methodist University (1995). Her first career as a writer and editor set the stage for her creative path. Learning how to look with focused intention, recording details for later use, continues to inform her quest for understanding through observation and storytelling.
Philley is a founding member of the arts group Ingrained ATX and a member of the New York Artists Equity Association. Her work has been exhibited around the country, most recently at Women & Their Work Gallery in Austin, ArtSpace111 in Ft. Worth, Pleiades and Equity Galleries in New York and The Georgetown Art Center. She has been highlighted in Glasstire, Voyage Austin and on the local KOOP Radio arts program. Her paintings and collages are part of corporate and private collections across the US, as well as in Germany and Spain.
In October 2022, the Austin-based Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, will premiere a site-specific installation of her work along its Woodland Trail. The series of more than 70 abstract, sculptural paintings on wood will hang from tree branches and rise from both rocky and grass-filled ground. Philley has spent the past year observing the seasonal changes in plant life, insects, and light at the gardens. The resulting shapes and colors she is creating will playfully engage with the wild nature of the Woodland Trail through April 2023.
Statement
The subjectivity of sight and how nature affects our state of mind is at the core of my abstract art practice. Through a personalized language of curving, yet precise, linework layered over a broad expanse of color, I tell stories of bubbling creeks, swaying trees and the fungal networks that connect and sustain organic life.
In my acrylic paintings, I recreate the experience of entering a state of flow; that calm yet energized place of getting lost in the minutia of beauty. I deconstruct the world around me into its most basic elements of color, reflective light, motion, and form. Then I reconfigure those pieces into meandering ripples that intertwine with the grain lines of my wood panels.
My digital mixed media artworks are cultivated within the realm of mycelium and mushrooms. I translate my ribboned language from paint to pixel by cutting up photos of my acrylic paintings, then stretching and twisting the pieces into entangled layers. Fertile knotted sections are replicated, spawning new artworks. The resulting images are a warped mirroring of the fungal cycle of decay, growth, fruiting and spore release. They are endless possibility.