Who Am I? Who Are You?

Artist Statement:

Using photographs as a base, I manipulate imagery of myself and various materials to reflect personal narratives, literature, music, and macabre. I enjoy blurring the lines of reality through these methods, which pay tribute to nature and our complex world. Each image tells a unique story, inviting viewers into a surreal realm of wonder and curiosity for a moment away from everyday life. These manufactured, dream-like spaces infused with emotions and experience facilitate a space for my mind to wander and spill into a physical object.

The juxtaposition between life and death permeates my work. Other prominent themes include fairytales, dreamscapes, altered reality, beauty in the mundane, existentialism, and The Self. Art acts as a meditative release that allows for a calm exploration of beauty through controllable action. My work is described as tumultuous, overwhelming, intriguing, strange, powerful, and imaginative. Art grants an opportunity to create visual guides for thoughts and ideas, so others can view them and formulate their narratives. 

I use alternative photographic processes from history to create images using light-sensitive chemicals that react under UV light. Then, I use various media to add dimension, texture, color, shape, and form to create one-of-a-kind works. Each print is unique and subject to the chemistry and application of materials. This process requires a digital negative, often created, and manipulated using Adobe Photoshop. These experimentations with alternative processes, digital prints, and mixed media combine historical and contemporary practices adding another layer to the contradictory nature of my images. 

I find inspiration in everything. Bill Wallace’s A Dog Called Kitty introduces a false sense of security and the plot twist, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho showed me that you can find wonder in the mundane and sometimes what you’re searching for is closer than you may have initially thought, and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment described in glorious detail the process of losing one’s sanity and redemption from your mistakes. Cindy Sherman, a woman who altered her appearance and displayed fabricated personas, used herself as a canvas and photography as the medium. Maggie Taylor is a pioneer in the world of Photoshop and uses found imagery to weave surreal landscapes. Taylor’s elements of “real” and “unreal” guide the viewer through an altered reality. Additionally, music acts as a special source for ideas. Florence + the Machine is appealing to me for a multitude of reasons. Her ethereal creations dig into your mind and take you on a journey. Her songs can fill a hollowed cavity and rest there for a while before retreating into the void. The soothing melodies and rhythms ebb and flow, calming and serene despite the darker subject matter coating her lyrics. The list goes on (and on and on and…).  

I am part of every book I’ve ever read, every person I’ve ever met, every song I’ve ever heard, and the antithesis of every horrible thing that has clung to my soul.

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Artist Biography:

A.L. Quillen is a Photographic Mixed Media artist from Dallas, Texas. In her formative years, A.L. relished time spent working on projects with her hands and getting wonderfully lost in the process of creating something out of nothing. After shifting studies from medicine to the arts, A.L. cultivated a sense of style that questions what it means to live an authentic life.

A.L. has two degrees from Collin College— an Associate of Applied Sciences in Commercial Photography and an Associate of Art in General Studies. She worked as a Student Assistant in the Photography Lab at Collin College, managing the Alternative Processes Lab, Darkroom, Studio, Digital Lab, and Printing Facilities. Assisting students and faculty has cultivated many skills in contemporary photographic practices. She, at long last, acquired a Bachelor’s in Visual and Performing Arts with a concentration in Photo-Video-Digital at The University of Texas at Dallas. 

A.L.’s most extensive project created to date is a gallery installation, “Let Go” from a 2019 exhibition at Collin— Gestalt. “Let Go” marked the end of her first Portfolio Class and showcased a column of over 200 photographs nailed in a spiral. This work creates a juxtaposition of itself in every way— contemplating life and death, struggle and achievement, desolation and motivation, specimen and creature, perfect and imperfect, positive and negative, and creation versus destruction. The work from “Let Go” is published as the Volume 6 Cover Artist for an Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Journal. She’s also shown work at Gallery 1313 in Plano, the Student Showcase at the Collin College Art Gallery, and the Society for Photographic Education exhibition at UTD’s SP/N Gallery. She won Juror’s Selection from Austin College for an artist book full of little scraps of nothing and everything. The validation was lovely.   

In addition to her personal artwork, A.L. works as a freelance Photographer and assisted on shoots for D Magazine. She’s designed the website, advertisements, promotional materials, and assisted throughout the beginning stages of a Suicide Prevention charity, later turning it into a 501(c)3 nonprofit. She held a position as Gallery Director and Resident Artist throughout 2024 in Allen, TX. This space housed resident artists, sold local artists’ work, hosted gallery exhibitions, workshops in the arts, and promoted general wellness. Now, it is a Gallery space. 

A.L. Quillen’s next body of work will focus on the malleability and fragility of memories and their deterioration.

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*I'm also a giant dork and entirely unserious. These descriptions sound fancy, though! ​​

Educational Background

University of Texas at Dallas

Collin College

Texas Tech University