Alisha Wessler’s sculptures, drawings, installations, and their interactions serve as poetic inquiries into both formal and cultural histories. Through an intuitive, process-based approach that’s equally interested in the functional uses, cultural narratives, and elemental properties evoked by bronze, clay, wax, fabric, and found objects, her work often relies on research into idiosyncratic instances where the natural and anthropocentric worlds meet. The resulting artworks resist straightforward interpretation but nevertheless suggest the deeply human impulse to answer immaterial mystery with material response.

She has exhibited her work internationally, including at Galerie Tator (Lyon, France), Kunsthalle Nummer Sieben (St. Petersburg, Russia), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Philadelphia, PA), the Bronx Museum of the Arts (Bronx, NY), Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park (Grand Rapids, MI), Johansson Projects (Oakland, CA), the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (Ann Arbor, MI), and most recently at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (Nuremberg, Germany) where she was awarded a fellowship and residency.

During her residency at AiR 351, she will create a project closely connected to the seafaring traditions of the Cascais-Lisbon region, utilizing locally sourced materials such as otoliths—calcareous concretions found in the inner ear of fish known as “wisdom stones”—and the traditional cuttlefish bone casting process.

Alisha’s 4 months residency in 2024 is fully sponsored by FLAD.