Ali Silverstein (b. 1980) creates paintings composed of multiple layers of canvas. Through staining, drawing, painting, and stenciling, Silverstein cuts, rearranges, and pins forms without a fixed reference point. Her process is unpremeditated and improvisational, resulting in a dynamic interplay of layered sheets.

Silverstein's constructions evoke a sense of airiness and contingency, occupying a space between Richard Tuttle's Critical Edge series and Matisse's La Gerbe.

Silverstein's work integrates painterly skill with the authenticity of immediate, unmediated gesture, often resulting in large, sculptural pieces. Her emphasis on intuition over preconception, improvisation over planned composition, and raw expression over industrial production reflects the philosophical ethos of abstract expressionism and action painting.

For the presentation at Zona Maco, Silverstein produced three new paintings. Two works continue her exploration of impulse and desire, the central theme of her recent practice, while Atom bridges her formal training in portraiture and figuration with her current approach to pure abstraction. Across these works, Silverstein draws inspiration from domestic environments to inform her gestures. The marks on the layered surfaces are improvisational yet shaped by decorative objects. While shapes and patterns reference tangible items such as ceramic vases or textiles, the profusion of colors and lines dissolves the boundaries of these figures, freeing the viewer from symbolic associations. By oscillating between representation and expressive abstraction, Silverstein challenges her own comfort zone, embracing disorder and resisting her inclination toward the tangible.