Alisa Sikelianos-Carter: In the Eye of Belonging

August 21, 2021- January 16, 2022

Curated by Julie Lohnes, Director & Curator of Art Collections & Exhibitions

Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, Return 2 Earth, 2017, ink, gouache, acrylic medium, powder pigment, micaceous oxide, copper foil, gold foil, silver foil, liquid gold leaf, interference pigment, glitter, gold coarse mica, and collage on archival paper, 120 x 84 inches, © Alisa Sikelianos-Carter

Alisa Sikelianos-Carter is a mixed-media painter from Upstate New York. She is a 2021 Foreland Studio Fellow and a 2020 Sustainable Arts Foundation recipient. She has been awarded residencies at the Fountainhead Residency, the Millay Colony for the Arts, NXTHVN, Vermont Studio Center, the Wassaic Project, and Yaddo. Her group exhibitions include James Cohan Gallery, New York City; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago; and Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London; with an upcoming solo show at Fridman Gallery, Beacon, NY.

Sikelianos-Carter asserts that Black features are a manifestation of a sacred and divine technology that has served as a means of survival, both physically and metaphysically. She envisions a cosmically bountiful world that celebrates and pays homage to ancestral majesty, power, and aesthetics. Inspired by traditionally Black hairstyles, Sikelianos-Carter uses web and catalog-sourced images to construct new archetypes. Through her exploration of opulent, luminescent materials she is creating a mythology that is centered on Black resistance and uses the body as a site of alchemy and divinity.

Additional funding generously provided by Africana Studies; Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies; Interdisciplinary Studies; the Department of Visual Arts; and the Office of Intercultural Affairs.