Alice Aycock, (b. 1946 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), Armageddon Allegra Trio Light, 2018, Watercolor on inkjet print, Gift of Marian Stuart Pillsbury 2021.2.1

The Davis was recently gifted Armageddon Allegra Trio Light, a mixed media work by Alice Aycock and the first work by the artist in the collections. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Aycock learned about art and architecture at an early age from her father, a construction engineer who designed and constructed homes. She received formal artistic training at Douglass College and Hunter College, where she studied with Robert Morris during her Master’s. Aycock lives and works in New York City, and in addition to her own artistic practice, she has taught at institutions including Yale University, New York’s School of Visual Arts, and the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her early practice focused on land art works that reshaped the earth by building on or into the landscape using natural materials such as nearby soil, rocks, vegetation, and water. She is currently best known for her large-scale metal sculptures that reference both natural and built environments.

Comprised of blooming flowers with robotic limbs, this watercolor on an inkjet print draws from her land art and large-scale sculpture. The twisting, bright pink tentacles in Armageddon Allegra Trio Light allude to DNA strands and the motion of swirling dancers, themes present in much of Aycock’s work. Fascinated by dance as a form of self-expression since childhood, Aycock’s interest in motion is conveyed in the lightness and fluidity of her floral figures. Each anchored by a sturdily engineered base, her flowers’ flowing tentacles reach outward, invoking the expansive power of nature’s forces.