Convergence. 30″x 30″, acrylic on paper mounted Ampersand Museum Panel

Richard Bright: Can we begin by you saying something about your background?

Alicia Blaze Hunsicker: I work from my home studio located in Leyden, a remote hill town in western Massachusetts. I graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.  I enjoy working in a wide range of media including painting, printmaking, sculpture and photography. For three decades I have been privileged to show locally, nationally, and internationally. My work has been featured in numerous print and digital media and honoured through numerous grants & awards.  Traveling has been a part of my artistic journey that has been enriched by residencies at D. Fleiss & East West International Artists Residency, Mallnitz, Austria, The Zendai Museum, Shanghai China, and at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT.

RB: What is the underlying focus of your work? In particular, what are the thinking processes and knowledge practices that guide your artistic research?

ABH: Painting is a form of meditation for me and by keeping my studio practice in line with my spiritual practice I trust that the resulting works would in some ways express my view of the world.

I create in cycles between experiencing life and then responding to it by making art. The length of the process is not predictable, sometimes it’s a short burst of activity or long pause.

My work is a continual processing of deeper themes in my life and the imagery usually foretells my understanding before my consciousness understands it. I am very attracted to patterns and seem to have an affinity for them.  I see them as a language of the divine or blueprints of creation and they convey how we are all interconnected.

When I am being pulled into the direction of creating artwork a pattern will call to me and I will start to see it everywhere and in everything.  That is when I start pulling in imagery to work from to form my visual vocabulary.  I gather images that have a part of the essence I am trying to express. Then experiment by layering transparencies in photoshop to build up an image I feel drawn to paint.  I use the digital collages as sketches, sometimes applying them as a xerox transfer to my surface to paint on.  Each step moves further away from the source material and into my own creation. Like scrying, my paintings reveal themselves to me.

Drift. 30″x 30″, acrylic on paper mounted on cradleboard

Heavenly Cascade. 12″x 12″, acrylic on cradle board

RB: Can you say something about your different series?

ABH: Throughout my career I have interwoven many series of paintings.  Each one evolving out of the next.

In the series, Moments of Creation, I explored the melding of inner and outer worlds. The sacredness of every element of our universe which can be found throughout the seemingly simple patterns in life, patterns that structure the natural realm and that are also found inside of our bodies. Here, I attempt to create a space for these patterns to visibly emerge which often appear otherworldly. Aspiring to capture and express the moment where dark matter materializes into matter, of thought manifesting into the material, that moment of transmutation where something is infused with life. These images bridge the macro to the micro, the cosmos to the miniscule and the inner and outer so that people can understand the Oneness of all aspects of our reality.

Moments of Creation. 19.5” x 48”, oil on paper mounted on cradle board

In the next series, my interest peaked in particle and quantum physics and The Beautiful Tangle collection was realised. These paintings are the investigations of particle collision imagery ultimately inspiring my trip to CERN to research and gather more insight. I was very drawn to the beautiful patterns the particles made during a collision and enthralled by CERN’s discovery of the “God” particle.  During my time at CERN, I was invited to a special behind the scenes tour and meet with some of the scientists there who were happy to share their work with me.  I wanted to make sure that I had a good understanding of these maps so when I re-contextualized the images in my paintings they would still carry the truth.

Water Garden Whirlwind Particle Collision #2. 35”x 38”,
acrylic on paper

Nexus, a connection or series of connections linking two or more things.  Exploring the challenges of compartmentalization in this series, I dove into investigating the powerful combination of art and science to produce creations greater than the sum of the separate parts. With science as a point of departure, I strove to paint vibrant swirling organisms of microscopic particles and cosmic bodies to reveal a cosmic discussion about the nature of all things leaving behind pure scientific objectivity and infusing them with an intuitive, creative, joyful exuberance.

Oracle. 22”x 30”, acrylic on cradle board

MicroScape. 30″x 30”, acrylic on Amperstand Museum Panel

Dance of the Cosmos. 30″x 30″, acrylic Ampersand Museum Panel

In the Cosmic Bloom series, I’m excited about the floral elements that emerged to form the organic, complex surface patterns. My palette exploded into a vibrant kaleidoscope of color!  Through shifts in scale, these paintings play with the relationship between the Heavens and the Earth.  A flower can be related to fractal patterns. There are nebulae and other stellar bodies that resemble flower shapes. It is Nature expressing its inherent divine blueprint. These paintings also explore growth, vitality, and coming into your true self with all that encompasses.

Sun Salutations. 30″x 30″, acrylic on paper mounted Ampersand Museum Panel

Mapping a New World. 12″x 12″, acrylic on cradle board

Musica Universalis (music of the spheres). 12″x 12″, acrylic on Ampersand Museum Panel 

Rapture. 12″x 12″, acrylic on cradle board

RB: Can you say something about your working process, particularly in reference to your working through series

ABH: I do create in a series. This is to aid my exploration of ideas on a particular theme or style in greater detail. During this process of creating, artists can explore something deeper about themselves, their experiences and their environments. I feel each of my series leads to the next as my work, my consciousness and understanding evolve as well. Creating in series also has the goal of having a cohesive body of work to exhibit at completion.

Supernova. 12″x 12″, acrylic on Ampersand Museum Panel

RB: In many ways our human brains interpret information through pattern recognition and re-arranging pattern, which is an evolving dynamic process. How does this visual modelling relate to your work?

ABH: Yes! This is exactly how my brain works, seeing patterns not only in my art process and nature but also in culture, history, behaviour, media, etc.

Inherent patterns offer a bridge or schematic architecture that can be viewed from many perspectives, including multidimensionally.

It is my intent to explore imagery in paintings that the viewer will subconsciously recognize as familiar patterns which are encoded in all organic life. And that this will reveal their resonance to a connection with the divine and interconnectedness with all things.

I Am Becoming . 12″x 12″, acrylic on cradle board

Cosmic Garden. 10″x 10″, acrylic on Ampersand Museum Panel

RB: What future projects are you currently working on?

ABH: While I have always incorporated sculptures in my shows in the past, “Shift”, my exhibit at Hampden Gallery, UMass was pivotal. There, I started to move into creating environments that included floral and garden inspired sculptural elements. I really enjoyed this moving into a three-dimensional version of my work and, interestingly enough, this has led me to my current artistic expression of creating gardens.

This new artistic pursuit is not only to create beautiful patterns by layering color and shape with the different plants but also to create food abundance for my family and friends.

The Covid years took its toll on the art industry and the venues I exhibited at were closed or had very limited access. Opportunities became scarce, so the shift to a project focusing on an artistic approach to creating gardens felt right in this atmosphere.

Getting my hands in the dirt and growing old-fashioned heirloom seeds to plants felt like going home, back to nature and the organic patterns that speak to my soul. Where this will lead next as an artist is not apparent yet, however I am starting to feel pulled to painting again and am looking forward to the conversation that will spark as I travel full circle from the garden back to the canvas.

Sculptural installations, SHIFT at Hampden Gallery

Cut paper Flower Sculptural installation in collaboration with artist, Karen Loomis, SHIFT at Hampden Gallery

Artist Statement

My work reveals a cosmic discussion about the nature of all things. It fuses my interests in science, consciousness, and spirituality.

All organic forms are expressions of a divine force – each with its place and function in the journey of the whole. I believe that all life, human and non-human, is fully sentient, conscious, and aware.  There is a profound beauty in nature’s forms. I am fascinated by these repeating patterns and see these forms as part of the framework of creation and a divine language showing our interconnectedness. I am particularly drawn to concepts being explored in quantum physics and how they relate to the energetic realms that directly impact our minds, bodies and consciousness.

I have many references to particles in my paintings. They are the fundamental building blocks of all things. To understand them revolutionizes our understanding of nature, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the universe and the limitless expression for the human experience.

I am passionate about circles and lines that arc and swirl to create the structure of elegant forms, points of light, and the nature inspired patterns that I am captivated by while painting.

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To learn more about my work, please visit my website at www.aliciahunsicker.com

All images copyright and courtesy of Alicia Blaze Hunsicker

Art, Creativity, Pattern