Alicia Wrenn is an artist based in Takoma Park, Maryland.

After completing my academic studies, I chose a creative path while working for more than two decades in the humanitarian and development sectors. Much of this work has focused on supporting refugees — a role that calls for strategic thinking, analytical insight, and steady resilience. Amidst this work, art has become both a sanctuary and a mirror—sometimes elusive, sometimes startlingly present. It offers me a language for emotions too deep for words: the grief of displacement, the rage at injustice, and the fragile hope that flickers in the face of persecution.

Through pattern, texture, and color, I interpret and document these human experiences—rejection and resilience, isolation and belonging, the healing force of nature, and the liberating energy of community. My practice has evolved over the years, moving through ceramics, furniture, and printmaking, before finding its rhythm in acrylics, ink, and pastels. Each medium allows me to layer memory, dream, and lived experience into a visual record of what I have witnessed and carried.

I draw inspiration from travel, the quiet tending of my plants, and the extraordinary acts of compassion I see in others. These gestures, small and large, remind me of our capacity to nurture life and restore dignity. In my work, I return again and again to themes of family, loss, trauma, and the longing for home. At its core, my art seeks to hold space for both sorrow and possibility, reflecting the resilience of the human spirit.