Alli Conrad
The Gift, 2025 
Oil on canvas, unframed
Measures 12” by 9” by 3/4"
Available online only 

Alli Conrad (b. 1995) is a Chinese-American artist working & living in Los Angeles whose work focuses on nostalgia: both private and universal. Her paintings often depict observed and imagined realities, freezing moments of time from personal memory, to produce compositions imbued with emotionality and romanticism. A fascination with pastiche sentimentality, and yesteryear symbolism derives from Conrad’s own upbringing, as a “Third Culture Kid”.

The work comes from a rigorous method of archiving: augmenting historical photographs, journaling, and collaging. From there, a singular image arises that feels faintly distant, but overwhelmingly recognizable. Cropped vignettes of clothing fabric come alive and act as a container for indirect emotion. Repetition and an obsession with mark-making envelopes the viewer, allowing them to feel place and time. Through the subtle absence of human faces in her paintings, Conrad allows her audience to transport themselves into a sensorial experience of relatable tableaus, creating an endless possibility of narratives.