Alice Alva is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and designer based in Kirikiriroa/ Hamilton, New Zealand, who works across drawing and illustration, embroidery and textiles, painting and graphic design.
Her work is informed by an interest in patterns, ornamentation, architecture and craft-based processes. Alva has exhibited her work across Australia and New Zealand, including Wallace Gallery, Toi Poneke, RM Gallery and Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s Rear Window Project. She has been a finalist in the Wallace Art Prize, Parkin Drawing Prize and this year’s Molly Morpeth Canaday Painting and Drawing Prize. Her work can be found in private and public collections including Waikato Museum and Wallace Arts Trust.

Artist statement
I am drawn to the laborious process employed by traditional embroidery, textiles and craft techniques and driven by the obsessive act of repetition. This series of works are part of an on-going investigation which explores connection, memory, love, loss - the intimate moments associated with soft textiles. These pieces are a reminder of cloth's role as a threshold between our inner and outer worlds. I am interested in the relationships that we form with and within cloth fibres, whether it’s a favourite t-shirt, an decorative doily embroidered from a great-grandmother, or a jersey worn by a lover, textiles as objects can act as a substitute for missing our beloved or memories from past lives.’