With an encyclopedic quest for knowledge that seeks no iconic style, Alice Aycock mines the universe for all that is primeval, intuitive, technological, and irrational. Spinning millennial layers into whorls of complex structures, she asks: What’s life all about? Her recent show, “Alice Aycock: Drawings,” at The Grey Gallery, New York University, and the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, New York, documented 40 years of public installations, sculptures, and works on paper. In this interview, she shares her journey, offering insights into the processes that guide her monumental works.
Joyce Beckenstein: Your master’s thesis (1971) about highways is reminiscent of Leonardo’s river metaphor for time: “In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.” It also prefigures your artistic journey. Why did you choose to study highway systems? …see the entire article in the print version of May’s Sculpture magazine.
