Press
ArtForum, In a Field of Ancient Stars
WWD: Anthropologie Reveals Winners of ‘Leading With Creativity’ Awards
Columbia Magazine, Constructing Futures: Making Ecological Art in a Time of Uncertainty
Mellon Fellowship lecture NYBG: The Body a Vessel for Worlds We Bring
Bio
Priscilla Aleman is a visual artist based in New York and Miami. With her background in archaeology, she uses sculpture to retrace ideas around the afterlife, Pre-Columbian cosmology, and the interplay of cultures from the Global South. Her work has been exhibited across the country and internationally at: The Smithsonian Museum of Art (Washington D.C.), The Bronx Museum (New York), New York Botanical Garden (New York), Readytex Art (Suriname), Art and Culture Center Hollywood (Florida), The Kampong (Miami), The Explorer’s Club (New York), and Virginia CommonWealth University (Richmond). Her most recent solo exhibition, In a Field of Ancient Stars, was presented at the Baxter Street Camera Club (New York) in 2023. In 2022 she presented their first public art work in New York City commissioned by New York Botanical Garden in the group exhibition Around the Table.
Aleman’s work has been reviewed in numerous publications including The New York Times: T Magazine, Hyperallergic, Artforum, Columbia Magazine, and Musee Magazine. Aleman is the recipient of the Mellon Research Fellowship at NYBG, The Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant, NYFA City Artist Corp Grant, and was recognized as 2009 Presidential Scholar in the Arts. She has been awarded residencies at Mass Moca, FountainHead, LMCC, StoneLeaf, and Baxter Street Camera Club. Aleman earned a BA with honors from Cooper Union and an MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University.
Artist Statement
Sculpture has an intuitive nature of channeling ideas to life, bringing primordial material into recognizable form, the body a vessel for the worlds we bring with us. I am inspired by the ocean and sports fields- a portal of thresholds - as a poetic analogy to the exchanges we create. Using plaster, rainwater, clays, shells, banana leaves, and sports relics, I create figures in accessible materials to understand the body’s presence and evolution; elevating it as an artifact to study various social, agricultural and cosmic fields. Body casting—an intimate experience between myself, my friends and family members—becomes a central component to many of my works.
With my background in archaeology, I use sculpture to retrace ideas around the afterlife, Pre-Columbian cosmology, and the interplay of cultures from the Global South. My Miami upbringing guides my work to better understand landscapes’ past traditions and its global histories. I bring to life my own parallel and intersecting universes spiritually in process and form. Citing the ocean as a connective tissue, I forge materials collected from related regions throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. I incorporate a multitude of deep field research and work to push the process of recontextualizing old and new worlds.