IKAL Independent Art

Alicia Paz is a well recognized/established Mexican artist based in London, working internationally. She is a graduate from UC Berkeley, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris, Goldsmiths College and Royal College of Art London and has been awarded with several prizes and grants throughout her career.
She explains her work as one focusing on the tension between artifice/illusion and the veracity of actual processes involved in painting, exposing the duplicitous nature of representation: “Through her work, she explores notions of hybridity, assemblage, and metamorphosis, focusing particularly on the female figure: the self is experienced and presented as multiple, fluid, paradoxical. Paz's paintings are as much portraits as they are landscapes, combining references that range from erudite painting or the history of the painted image, to citations of advertising images or comics. 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 recent solo exhibition Juntas at the Maison de l'Amérique latine in Paris, reflected on the transcultural, collective and intimate history of women. Curated by Lassla Esquivel and Julie Cern, in Juntas Paz presented a series of portraits of women that have had an influence in her life and that come from different backgrounds, cultures, eras - and yet- speak to one another. A symbiosis takes place by bringing them together in a sort of family or genealogy tree where the artist recognizes the influence they have had in her life as well as their stories and her own. A story of itinerancy, of different habited territories, identities and cultures. In this series of work, Alicia Paz not only refers to the history of the depicted women but also traces the history of artisan tiles that constitute a very rich and appropriate iconography territory for her and that reflect in a sense her nomadism and career as an itinerant artist.

Alicia Paz’ rich cultural background and living abroad experiences have impacted her artworks in bringing different elements together: while there is a trace of Churrigueresque or “Spanish Baroque” style in her artworks, there is also a reference to Pop Art that influenced her while living in California - and more recently, in the UK, a return to nature where organic elements can be traced.