A+P AT HOME: IN CONVERSATION: STAR MONTANA AND ALICIA PILLER WITH ERIN CHRISTOVALE

Los Angeles based artist, Alicia Piller envisions historical traumas, both political and environmental, through the lens of a microscope. Her sculptures and installations conceive of past atrocities, suffering, and accomplishments as biological forms–broken down to a cellular level. A variety of materials including vinyl, latex balloons, and photographs, are employed to examine the energy around wounds societies have inflicted upon themselves and others. Her subject matter is often informed by her studies in anthropology and her sculptural process by her time in fashion and leatherworking. Alicia Piller received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in the spring of 2019.

Erin Christovale is the Associate Curator at the Hammer Museum and the co-founder of Black Radical Imagination with Amir George. Notable exhibitions include a/wake in the water: Meditations on Disaster (2014) at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Memoirs of A Watermelon Woman (2016) and A Subtle Likeness (2016) at the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, S/Election: Democracy, Citizenship, Freedom (2016) at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, the critically acclaimed Made in L.A. 2018 (2018) with Anne Ellegood and belonging (2019) at the Hammer Museum.

Star Montana is a photo-based artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She was born and raised in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, which is predominantly Mexican American and serves as the backdrop to much of her work. Her work has recently been exhibited at Charlie James Gallery (2019, 2016); Residency Art Gallery (2018); LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes (2018); Occidental College (2017); The Mexican Center for Culture and Cinematic Arts at the Mexican Consulate General of Mexico (2017); The Main Museum (2017); Ballroom Marfa (2017); and Vincent Price Art Museum (2016). Montana will be an artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in 2020. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Art from the University of Southern California, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, and an Associate of Arts in Photography from East Los Angeles College.