Alli Conrad is a Chinese American artist whose work focuses on both private and universal nostalgia. Her paintings often depict observed and imagined realities, freezing moments of time from personal memory to produce compositions imbued with emotionality and romanticism.

Conrad’s fascination with pastiche, sentimentality, and yesteryear symbolism derives from her own upbringing as a ‘third culture’ kid. The work comes from a rigorous method of archiving: augmenting historical photographs, journaling, and collaging. From there, a singular image arises that feels faintly distant but overwhelmingly recognizable. Cropped vignettes of fabric come alive and act as a container for indirect emotion. Repetition and an obsession with mark making envelopes the viewer and sparks an awareness of their place and time.

Through the subtle absence of human faces in her paintings, Conrad allows her audience to transport themselves into a sensorial experience of relatable tableaus, creating an endless possibility of narratives.