I make oil paintings and drawings about family, identity, home and the passage of time. Using a formal vocabulary that is equally organic, gestural and graphic, I produce work that straddles the boundary between abstraction and representation.

The central theme in my work is personal and collective memory. My investigation into personal identity and the role of family in shaping identity includes examining family lineage: oral, written and imagined. I use specific references—family photographs and artifacts, maps, folk art, textiles, flora and landscape— to create paintings layered with marks and vivid colors. These source materials provide me with a departure point that I translate into line, pattern, form and color. For example, hand-crocheted family heirlooms inspired the circular and net patterns that I use throughout my work.

The layered marks in my work symbolize the way memories build up internally and become a part of one’s character, creating a complex system of stories and narrative.  The blooming floral form is a recurring motif in my work; it is a form that allows me to investigate progression, growth and the passing of time.

For me, painting is an active process of thinking, feeling and discovery. I spend some days mostly looking, and consider it an equally important aspect of my practice. I work on several paintings at once, using a palette with a broad spectrum, allowing the momentum of color and mark making in one painting to feed the next.

My world is filled with shapes and colors. I am consumed with the beauty in my path. Exaggerated trees and whimsical shadows surround me dividing the world into pieces. I take all of the pieces and fit them together to make a painting that twists nature and known Icons into unconventional and amusing moments.

Rolling hills, expansive valleys, and majestic bodies of water become visual imprints on my mind. The patterns and sensations begin to cover the canvas with heavy brushwork and generous applications of paint, forming majestic oaks amidst rollercoaster vineyards. Violet mountains become the backdrop for disorganized valleys and cool marshes. The Sky erupts with cumulous clouds of umber and pink, and others fade across a shimmering ocean with purple horizons.

 My intention is to make dynamic imitations, a déjà vu for the mind that will encourage viewers to examine their surroundings with a fresh perspective. I want to present nature and structure with a delightful whimsy that reminds the public to turn their head and look again next time they pass a familiar place that has lost its allure.

I am currently working on a two new series of paintings the first  endangered species of California and the second fantastic space aliens.  I am interested in texture and variety and contrast of ark through the use of many materiasl including gouache, screen printing, resin, spray paint, and pencil. 

Ali grew up in Ithaca and Brooklyn, NY and moved to San Francisco in 1995. She holds an MFA in Printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis, and a BFA in Painting from Cornell University. She works in printmaking, painting, and mixed. Recent exhibits include “Four Artists” at Ligne Roset, “The Day of the Dead” at the Legion of Honor, “The Eye of the Storm” at Markham Vineyards, and “Chicano Visions” at the De Young Museum. She has held artist residencies at the de Young Art Center in San Francisco and the Lower East Side Printshop in New York. Ali has taught at Drew high school since 1996. She has taught in a wide range of institutions including community centers, at risk youth summer programs, and special events and workshops at the de Young Museum and SFMOMA. She will be the artist in residence at the De Young Museum August 2010. There are several new bodies of work including small 8" x 8" encaustic wood panels inspired from dreams and childhood memories. The smaller pieces created this year reference Stonehenge and seasons. My favorite quality of encaustic is the transparency and layering that creates a sequenced narrative, a feeling of memory, and nostalgia. The beauty of this media is its unique translucency, spontaneity, and combination of printmaking, painting, and drawing techniques. Monprints are created by painting a plate with ink. A moist piece of paper is placed on top of the plate and rolled through an etching press which transfers the ink from the plate to the paper. Each color is a separate pass through the press. The characteristic of monoprinting is that no two prints are alike; although images can be similar, editioning is not possible. Also known as the most painterly method among the printmaking techniques, monoprints and monotypes are essentially printed paintings. The appeal of the monotype lies in the unique translucency that creates a quality of light very different from a painting on paper or a print, and the beauty of this media is also in its spontaneity and its combination of printmaking, painting and drawing mediums.