About

Photo: Alessandro Ceccarelli

Alicia Paz's paintings, collages and standing figures deal primarily with identity, and explore the mutability of subjectivity. Paz focuses 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. Her work at times incorporates elements taken from the applied and decorative arts, using these registers as a vehicle for intertwining narratives. Other recent subjects include cultural hybridity and representations of family, exploring the complexities of kinship and lineage in a globalized world.

Alicia Paz recently presented a solo exhibition titled “Juntas” at the Maison de l’Amérique latine in Paris. This project was curated by Lassla Esquivel and Julie Crenn and was generously funded by Fluxus Art Projects and was accompagnied by a 52 page catalogue. Paz also recently exhibited at the FRAC Ile de France, Château de Rentilly, as part of the group exhibition Le Cabaret du Néant (2020) and was part of Life Stories, a group exhibition at Chatsworth House, UK, (2021). An Arts Council-funded research and development project culminating in two solo exhibitions in UK institutions took place in 2021, these include Río y Mar (River and Sea) at the Beecroft Gallery in Southend-on-Sea, as part of the regional festival Estuary, as well River Makers as at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in North Lincolnshire, UK.

Paz has had several solo exhibitions in the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, and Argentina; two museum shows took place at the Museo Leonora Carrington in San Luis Potosí, Mexico (2019), and also at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, Germany (2016). The latter was accompanied by a bilingual monograph published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Vienna. As a multi-cultural artist, Paz’s work was included in the group exhibit Tous, des sang-mêlés, held at MACVAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, France (2017). Earlier solo projects include an exhibit at Dukan Gallery in Leipzig (2014), Mexican Cultural Institute in Paris (2013), Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2006) and Ruth Benzacar Gallery in Buenos Aires (2005). A semi-retrospective exhibit of her work was featured in L.A.C. Sigéan in collaboration with FRAC Occitanie (2010). Paz has also participated in various international painting survey exhibits such as Heute. Spektrum. Malerei. at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (2012) as well as Slow Magic, Contemporary Approaches to Painting at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (2009).

Paz's work is part of various international public and private collections and has been the subject of numerous catalogues and publications; her work has has been reviewed/featured widely (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 graduated from U.C. Berkeley, ENSBA-Paris, Goldsmiths College, and Royal College of Art, London.

All images on website copyright Alicia Paz (except otherwise noted)