Alicia Philley is an abstract painter who has been working in Austin, Texas for almost 15 years. Her work is deeply rooted in color theory—which she studied in the BFA painting program at Hunter College, NYC—as well as the natural landscape of Austin's trails, creeks, and plant life. She also holds a BA in journalism; her first career as a writer and editor set the stage for her creative path...always looking to the world around her for the narrative. She is a founding member of the Austin-based arts group Ingrained ATX and a member of the New York Artists Equity Association. Her paintings and collages are part of corporate collections in Texas and Germany and in private collections around Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, New York City, San Francisco, Ingolstadt, Germany and Bilbao, Spain.

My art practice is grounded in the subjective experience of sight and how we can use the act of looking to calm our busy minds. Every color and every curve in my abstract paintings mirror the elements of spaces that have guided me toward peace, joy and gratitude. The glistening ripples on a creek, leaves fluttering in a gentle breeze, exuberant springtime blooms, morning light on stones. I reduce my immediate landscape to the details that capture and hold my attention—hue, motion, light and pattern—then reformulate them with my language of spatial markings. By staining wood panels with bright pigments, I incorporate its grain; a visual metaphor for nature's pace of chronicling time. Across this expansive ground, I lay down precisely-mixed colors of flowing, branching lines. With each painting, I present a new yet also familiar vantage point for the internal experience of our world.