Alicia Piller Artist Talk

Alicia Piller is a Los Angeles–based mixed media artist whose practice explores materiality, memory, and the construction of history. Raised in Chicago, she earned her BFA in Painting and Anthropology from Rutgers University in 2004, grounding her work in both visual language and the study of human systems. Piller spent a decade in New York City working in the fashion industry, followed by three and a half years in Santa Fe, New Mexico—experiences that shaped her distinct sculptural voice and deep engagement with material transformation. She received her MFA in Sculpture and Installation from CalArts in 2019. Her work constructs what she describes as a material cosmology—where history, identity, and erasure orbit one another across layered systems of meaning. Drawing on cellular biology as a metaphor for trauma, repair, and continuity, she merges organic, industrial, and digital materials to create immersive, large-scale forms that examine how memory persists within contemporary cultural and political landscapes. Incorporating natural materials, recycled fabrics from the fast fashion industry, recycled 3D-printed components, and found objects, her sculptures function as evolving constellations—assembling fragments of labor, consumption, ancestry, and time into dynamic, interconnected fields. Piller’s work is held in the permanent collections of the California African American Museum, the Hammer Museum, and Glendale Community College, as well as in notable private collections including Pam Royalle, Janine Barrois, Dr. Joy Simmons, and artist Lauren Bon. She has been featured in The New York Times (“5 Artists to Watch at the California Biennial,” 2022) and the Los Angeles Times, including the recent feature “Trash Is Treasure for This Jewelry Maker and Sculptor” (Dec. 30, 2025), and is currently developing a temporary public sculpture for Kings Road Park in West Hollywood (2026).

A part of LA Tactile Lab's Artist Lecture Series

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