Ali Silverstein

Silverstein’s practice is grounded in the belief that transformation occurs through contact. Her work captures what happens at the point of touch—where distinct elements meet and merge, generating hybrid forms. These transformations are rarely complete or fully knowable; like human relationships, they remain partial, fluid, and often obscured. Layers, fringes, and painted veils serve as metaphors for desire, intimacy, denial, and the limits of perception. Through diverse painting techniques, she seeks to navigate and process the complexity of visual experience. “I want to see and understand everything,” she says, “but I know we can only ever access fragments—glimpses through veils.”

Born in Los Angeles in 1980, Silverstein earned a BA in Comparative Religion and Visual Art from Columbia University before moving to London to study painting at the Slade School of Art. Her background in religious studies infuses her practice with a deep curiosity about how people construct meaning and interpret existence. “Whether austere or psychedelically complex,” she notes, “many different stories can be crafted from the same evidence.”

Before completing her MFA, Silverstein served as one of the inaugural advisors for the Outset Contemporary Art Fund. Following her graduation, she was represented by Bischoff Weiss Gallery in London. Her work has since been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions, commissioned for large-scale public and private projects, and acquired by major collections worldwide. She has written for The New York Times, directed an award-winning documentary, and once reconstructed an entire Icelandic shipwreck for a solo exhibition at MoCA Tucson. She is currently self-represented.

Across all media, Silverstein’s approach remains consistent: she stages reactive encounters between materials, treating the studio as both laboratory and stage. Through acts of layering, obscuring, and interaction, her work reveals how meaning is never fixed but continually reborn—shifting and refracted like a kaleidoscope with every new combination.