Aili Schmeltz is a sculptor and painter that splits her time in between Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, CA. Aili studied at UCLA, earned her MFA from the University of Arizona, and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. Her research based process integrates utopian ideologies into paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Reflecting on Modernism and obsessively engaging with architectural forms, Aili manipulates and reduces these ideas and objects to their simplest form. She challenges the modernists notion of a perfect future and her critical approach questions the political philosophies of the American West that created the artificial environments in which we now live. She has exhibited nationally at galleries such as Edward Cella Art and Architecture, ACME, Commonwealth and Council, and at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in California, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson; and internationally in cities such as Berlin, Tokyo, Barcelona, London, and Zurich. Aili has been awarded several grants including the Pollock Krasner Grant, and attended several US and international residencies. She is the Founder of Outpost Projects and teaches at Otis College of Art and Design.

 

Artist website: ailischmeltz.com