Il peso delle aspettative nei dipinti dell’artista Alice West

The familiar comfort of your favourite childhood illustrated book meets the unsettling textures of lived experience within painter Alice West’s works.

In her own words, West’s art is a “response to the complexities of the human experience,” a personal and profound way of understanding the world and what it is to be alive in it. She invites us into a space where nostalgia and discomfort coexist, where memories are rendered in a style that is both familiar and askew.

The figures in her paintings are often solitary, caught in moments of introspection, sadness, or silent chaos. The girl cradling a lamb, tears streaming down her face, is both a figure of innocent melancholy and a potent symbol of attachment, innocence and comfort. The woman lying in a forest with another figure dangling her feet from the tree above, or the figure resting her head near a small pie, both evoke the feeling of being overwhelmed and uncertain of the expected next steps.

This tension between the comforting and the unsettling is central to West’s work. She describes her creative journey as being “steeped in storytelling,” influenced by her upbringing with mother and grandmother both librarians, and her father who often shared tales of his travels. 

We see this influence in an aesthetic that borrows from the stylized, flattened perspectives of “picture books and illustrative storytelling.” While these scenes are not meant for a child–and subvert those currently in the mainstream–historically the best stories for children are those that introduce these human complexities and anxieties intrinsic to living–like the fables of Hans Christian Andersen and even author Clive Barker’s more contemporary The Thief of Always. 

A woman in a red polka-dot dress holds a gravity-defying tower of baked goods and junk food, her expression a mix of weary responsibility and resignation. The weight of expectation, or the burden of consumption, rendered innocently in metaphor.

The idea of pressure, worry and overwhelm carries through to the determined figure with backpack and briefcase, depicted in a sunny yellow dress, she stands steely, foot in matching yellow pump resting on a tall stack of books. West’s parents are librarians–and as the child of one myself, I see West’s invitation to “engage with narratives that resonate on a deeply personal level.” I feel a quiet anxiety, and a familiar idea of losing one’s childhood to expectation. Here it is, resonating.

West’s blend of technique is compelling. Trained in traditional oil techniques at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, she has a command of form and color that gives her paintings a fine art sensibility. Yet, the bold lines, the patterned backdrops, and the simplified facial expressions recall that illustrative, almost folk-art aesthetic. In her work, Modern Royalty, a woman holds a small dog in a pose reminiscent of a classical portrait, but the background is a vibrant, intricate pattern and the frame is a playful, almost cartoonish purple. This blend of the historic and the modern, the serious and the whimsical, is a beautiful entry point into both worlds.

A woman reads a book by the light of a candle, surrounded by flowers, a quiet and intimate scene that feels both deeply personal and universally relatable. The leaves on a cobbled street, and the solitary figure bending over a box carrying a dead bird, hint at a quiet, untold story.

Alice West’s paintings embody the melancholy, anxiety and emotional ache of growing and continuing to live in the world.

To view more of Alice West’s work, check out her Format portfolio and follow her on Instagram.