Alicia Zapata

As an educator and visual artist in New Orleans and now Chicago, I first became attracted to recycled, found, free, or cheap materials as a means of creation due to the equity and accessibility of material, and the accessible visual language found in that material which both inhabits and defies the concept of “fine art.” While living in New Orleans I saw Henri Matisse’s cut out forms everywhere — in the tropical foliage, the shapes of cast shadows, the Old World architecture, and especially in the vibrancy of Caribbean colors. I began to experiment with naturalist shapes inspired by Matisse and the fragmented, yet cohesive book cover designs and collages of John Gall. Then I gravitated toward using materials with variations in value and hue to create a sense of light and movement in works comprised of naturalistic shapes. Since returning to Chicago, I’m moved and constantly inspired by the intuitive compositions my students create as well as the stratified elements of Chicago — its people, languages, architecture, and ever-changing borders. In my abstract series of paper collage, I investigate images of nature and manipulate dissected parts of those images to create compositions that are layered and shifting.

Alicia Zapata received her Master's Degree in Art Theory, Criticism and History and Certificate of Museum Studies from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. During that time she completed internships with Brooklyn Museum and International Center of Photography. Her academic focus was on American photography of the twentieth century and during this time she began to work in analog photography as an artistic medium. After graduate school, she taught middle school and high school darkroom photography at Marwen Art Center in Chicago for years before becoming an elementary school art teacher. From 2015-2018, Alicia taught visual art in New Orleans where she created and built two art programs as well as worked on large scale abstract paintings and began two different collage series which she continues to work in today. Currently, Alicia teaches middle school art on Chicago's northside and continues to work in collage and painting.