STATEMENT
My heritage is influenced by spirit keepers; the bricklayers, fisherfolk, Baptist deacons, Buddhist monks, graffiti walls, planters, and transcendental mantras. I come from the American Midwest and Southeast Asia, places with distinct and contrasting views of the self. The convergence of these two worlds, each with its own traditions, values, and perspectives, inspire me to explore themes of cultural hybridity.
In my interdisciplinary studio practice, performance serves as a foundation that expands into collage, painting, printmaking, photography, and video. I create prints, paintings, assemblages using encaustic paint, mixed media, stained canvas, Washi paper, and text. There’s something transformative in melting pigments, making gestural marks, and weaving in text. Language and its role in meaning-making and the construction of narrative intrigue me as much as the act of writing itself—a transformative process that challenges assumptions and opens the door to new possibilities.
Through performance, repetition, and time-based media, I explore themes of duration, existential ambiguity, and time. The materials I choose, like delicate Washi paper stained with encaustic, threaded, and draped from wooden arcs, seem to reveal the fragility and resilience within the cycle of transformation. Durational performance and repetition allow me to contrast cyclical and linear time, addressing the uncertainties and ambiguities of existence. In resisting the pressures of instant gratification, my work in performance, writing, and photography becomes a kind of quiet defiance. By blending these mediums, I create spaces that invite personal reflection - spaces where viewers are encouraged to sit with the uncertainty of meaning, the fluidity of identity, and the complex dance between individual and collective stories.
BIO
Alena Ahrens (b. 1979) is a contemporary American-Asian artist currently based in St Louis, MO. She studied performance art at MoMA PS1 under Marina Abramović, completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago residency program. Solo and group exhibitions include the Zhou B. Art Center (Chicago, IL), the Tipi Project (Brooklyn, NY), MoMA PS1 (New York, NY), the DAMU Theatre (Prague, Czech Republic), and the ARTROOM (Lisbon, PT). International residencies include Chateau Orquevaux (Orquevaux, France), Hangar Arts (Lisbon, Portugal), and GEDOK (Stuttgart, Germany), and her work is in select private collections and the Museum of Encaustic Art (Santa Fe, NM).
