A Mid-Career Survey of the Art of Alicia Philley

This exhibition, which spills out of the Dougherty Arts Center East Gallery and onto the front lawn, is a multi-media, multi-decade, visual narrative of the connections between our lived environments, memory, and mental health. It is also a cacophony of color, which is the abstract language I’ve used to document ideas and life stages in two very different cities. Like a good record album, it will take visitors on a journey that is open to individual interpretation, providing new insights with every “listen.”

Our brains are wired to find patterns, to create associations. A trove of research confirms the health benefits of slowing down to take in the world around us with “discovery eyes.” My artmaking is an ongoing act of looking for connections: A chronicle of the world in its ever-shifting palette. In the changing styles and mediums of this expansive exhibition, viewers will experience New York City, with its towering buildings, crowded streets, and concrete-laden pocket parks. They will witness the ever-changing natural landscape of Austin, with its seasonal progressions from flowing to dry creeks, from blooming to frozen neighborhood gardens. In these two cities that I have called home, I document, process, and then share the world around me—the minutiae that are the background and sometimes the foreground of life.

These artworks are the expression of an ancient tradition: Slowing down to feel gratitude for, and curiosity about, the world we live in. This exhibition is an invitation to viewers to join me in this practice.