Alicia Philley
Austin, TX
Alicia Philley is a color-based abstract artist illuminating the connections between nature, memory, and community
Message
Alicia Philley is an Austin-based multimedia artist illuminating connections between community building, climate healing, and mental health. She completed the BFA program in painting at Hunter College, NYC, (2005) and earned a BA in journalism from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, (1995.)
Having lived and worked in central Texas for almost 20 years, her abstract art is deeply rooted in local greenbelt trails, waterways, and neighborhood gardens. With a visual vocabulary of precise, yet flowing, lines she explores lifecycles, nature's chronicle of time, and the ways our environment influences memory and emotional health.
In the past three years, Philley has held solo shows of her paintings, sculptures and digital mixed-media work at the Julia C. Butridge Gallery, the 14th Contemporary Eco Museum, and the Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve. During this time, she also created site-specific installations supported by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the LBJ Ranch & National Historic Park, and the City of San Marcos Arts Commission.
Her work has been exhibited around the country, including Women & Their Work Gallery in Austin, ArtSpace111 in Ft. Worth, Pleiades and Equity Galleries in New York and The Georgetown Art Center. Philley's art has been highlighted in such publications as Glasstire, the Austin Chronicle, the San Marcos Record, KOOP radio, and NPR. Her paintings and collages are part of permanent collections at health care centers, corporate collections and private homes across North America.
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 and sculptural forms, 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.