ARTWORK
Woman in profile, part of a series of portraits exploring the construction of female identity through the instinctive, collage-like process of photograms. Fragments composing the portraits are sourced from art historical imagery, pattern sheets, rococo ornamentation, plants and beads.
https://www.aliciapaz.com/shadow-play
Alicia Paz’s paintings, photograms, 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.

BIO
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 current and up-coming projects include “Life Stories”, a group exhibition at Chatsworth House, UK, and a solo exhibition at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine in Paris (2021).
Paz graduated from U.C. Berkeley, ENSBA-Paris, Goldsmiths College, and Royal College of Art, London.