Tilting West

Written By Alicia Bailey + Ravenpress

Tilting West is a large-scale group exhibition that reexamines the genre of the American West through a contemporary lens. This exhibition presents a wide range of perspectives that engage with and challenge the traditions within Western art. Through fresh interpretations of place, identity, land, and culture, this exhibition explores how the mythology of the West continues to shape the present, inviting audiences to experience the region not as a fixed idea, but as a living and evolving landscape of histories, communities, and possibilities.

On view through August 23, 2026 at 6901 Wadsworth Blvd, Arvada CO 80003. Free admission, free parking. More details here: https://arvadacenter.org/events/tilting-west

Alicia Bailey + Ravenpress

I am a Colorado based studio artist, working across multiple mediums to create artists' book works. Although primarily working in the book form, I also create assemblages, presented as wall-hung or pedestal displayed box works. Both approaches satisfy a yearning to fully engage with objects in a tangible and directed way, the work as much curatorial as creative. Regardless of the final form the work takes, exploring connections by linking and layering ideas and objects is the basis for my practice,

My book works move beyond traditional book forms, embracing presentation flexibility, innovative page folding tactics, rigid page construction and use of alternative materials. I value how the book form, both as sculptural object and as container, functions as interactive object and small scale installation. Traditional bookbinding techniques share space with sculptural forms that abandon or re-invent conventional book forms. Non-traditional materials interrupt the expected in works that challenge what a book can be while still honoring what a book does.

Most recently, I've been paying attention to a life-long love of wild and natural spaces, letting work evolve out of time spent in sparsely populated geographies throughout the American West. This involves rediscovering connectivity to nature and finding joy through deep observation. Objects selected have either a direct link or strong associative link to particular characteristics of individuals or times and places in my history. Finding meaning in materials and chance encounters with the broader natural world brings a sense of expansiveness and quells my tendencies towards anxieties and depression—a process I value deeply in both art and life.

https://www.aliciabailey.com
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