JUAN COSSIO
Hybrid Art
Aileen Frick has decided to look inward for her new solo exhibition at the FOUND:RE in downtown Phoenix. And while looking inward she has discovered the light that shines within as well.
“Going through my last few shows, the themes were man plus nature which was people interacting with the environment in a positive way; man plus man, people loving the space they are in and interacting with one another; and now for this show it’s man plus self,” says Frick. “For me, this means moving past my own obstacles, moving into a different section. And I’m showing this through the interplay with light. Everyone is white and made of light. They are showing their own light, metaphorically.”
Frick sees this light as a symbol of someone connecting to their highest self. And she depicts it in these paintings by literally letting the light show though. Her canvases, which are all created with pieces of torn magazines and paint, are an exact negative of her original images. The darks show as lights and the lights as darks.
“It’s people in their environments dealing with transformative moments,” says Frick. “And with the colors, I’ve
inverted them exactly so black is white, white is black, green is red, red is green and purple is yellow. That’s what I like about them. It’s the idea of the outer you, the inner you and everything behind that.”
Frick works in an intuitive way that is guided by the connections that come out intrinsically through her laborious process.
“It’s a spontaneous process,” says Frick. “But things come out that seem random but end up making sense. In one piece, the letters SAM showed up in the collage. And I included it in the image. And then I realized the image is the inside of the Seattle Art Museum. Things like that happen all the time. That’s why these are so intuitive. They are staring at me, talking to me, the whole time.”
FOUND:RE 1100 N. Central Avenue • Phoenix, AZ 85003 • (602) 875-8000 • www.foundrehotels.com