ARTIST BIO:

Alicia Paz's paintings, collages and standing figures deal primarily with identity and the notion of a divided subject/author, and explore the mutability of subjectivity. In recent years, Paz has focused on the female figure: the Self is experienced and presented as multiple, paradoxical, and in flux. Inhabiting fantastical and exotic landscapes, Paz's feminine subjects become fused and combined with organic life. Strange and unsettling visions of tree-women and monster-women also represent the fusion of the Subject with painting itself: she often depicts amphibian or plant-like figures “weeping” pigment, their limbs, hair, and various ornamental accoutrements mud-caked and dripping, as if extracted from a colourful, post-cognitive swamp.

Alicia Paz has had several solo exhibitions in the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, and Argentina, most recently at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, Germany (2015-2016). This exhibition was accompanied by a 96-page bilingual monograph published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Vienna. Other solo projects include an exhibit at Dukan Gallery in Leipzig (2014) and at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Paris (2013). A semi-retrospective exhibit of her work was featured in L.A.C. Sigéan in collaboration with FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, as part of the regional biennial titled Casanova Forever (2010). Paz has participated in various international painting survey exhibits such as Slow Magic, Contemporary Approaches to Painting at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (2009) as well as Heute. Spektrum. Malerei. at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (2012). Her work was included in the group exhibit Tous, des sang-mêlés, recently held at MACVAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, France (2017). Earlier solo presentations include Drawing Now Paris at the Carrousel du Louvre with Galerie Dukan & Hourdequin (2012), as well as Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2006) and Ruth Benzacar Gallery in Buenos Aires (2005). Paz's work is part of various public and private collections and has been the subject of numerous catalogues and publications; her work has has been reviewed/featured internationally (Art News, Art Press, Modern Painters, Art Forum, Turps Banana, The Guardian, Le Monde, Libération, Beaux-Arts Magazine, New York Times, Reforma, etc…).

In August 2017 Paz unveiled a public sculpture commission at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, titled Insel der Puppen (Island of Dolls), in steel and enamel. Paz's up-coming projects include a residency and exhibition at the Leonora Carrington Museum in Mexico (2019) and a solo exhibition at the Maison d’Amérique Latine in Paris (2020). Paz graduated from U.C. Berkeley, ENSBA-Paris, Goldsmiths College, and Royal College of Art, London.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK:

Inhabiting fantastical and exotic scene, Alicia Paz’s female subjects is closely related to organic life. The tree, a recurring motif in the artist’s work, symbolises immortality and eternity, knowledge and wisdom, strength and protection, abundance and growth, forgiveness and salvation. Trees have a transformative power, and the range of interpretations and meanings associated with trees is many and diverse across cultures, with allusions familial bonds, mother earth, the transformation of the seasons and the anchoring of time. For Paz, femininity is bound to nature; one’s familial identity and historical roots, and the power of cross-cultural pollination.