Alise Anderson

Lives and works in Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Artist statement

I’m an interdisciplinary artist working across textiles, photography, painting, sculpture, and video. I’m drawn to using documentary-style materials—family archives, cultural references, and personal history—not just to tell stories, but to comment on the systems and absurdities they come from. The real is often the most bizarre. I’m interested in how the familiar can reveal what’s off, broken, or funny. My work mixes the everyday with the absurd. I like taking something recognizable and flipping it on its side to open up new ways of seeing. Humor plays a big role in my practice—it’s a way to make space for tenderness, critique, and survival. In Unruly, I rework a Mormon handbook for girls into a queer field guide, queering the language of belonging within a very specific religious culture. In My Grandma is a Meme, I dive into my grandmother Trudy’s creative and domestic archive, pulling out the kitsch, beauty, and strangeness in her life’s work. There’s overlap in how we make things—with care, humor, and a kind of quiet devotion. I often work with traditional fiber techniques and labor-intensive processes. Repetition and handwork give me time to think, process, and sometimes laugh or grieve through the materials. I like the idea that objects carry more than their function—that they hold memory, emotion, and stories that can be reshaped. In all of my work, I’m asking people to look again. To notice what feels familiar but maybe isn’t. To hold humor and heaviness at the...

Artwork