2026 State of the Art Prize, West Virginia
2026 State of the Art Prize, West Virginia
Ali Printz
Ali Printz
Ali Printz (West Virginia) is a history-based interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses forgotten multilayered histories with a focus on the Appalachian region. By mixing archival elements, craft and found objects with practices like painting and technology, she decenters academic art with art forms that are often classed and stereotyped within American culture.
Ecological Art, Installation, Socially-Engaged Visual Art, Visual Arts
2026
About Ali Printz
Shepherdstown, WV
As a scholar, curator, and painter, Printz’s work addresses Appalachian culture and its multilayered environmental histories and mixes elements of craft, throw away culture, and technology in combination with historic photographic sources. She received both a BA in art history and a BFA in painting from West Virginia University in 2009 and an MA from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York in 2012. She received her PhD in art history from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia in 2024. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and in various venues throughout the Appalachian region. Her recent projects include “Appalachian Extraction” with CrikHoller collaborator Ernie Roby-Tomic, and the public mural, “Carrie Williams: Saint of Coketon” at Buxton and Landstreet Gallery in West Virginia in 2020, inclusion in the group exhibition “Women’s Work: Redefining Appalachian Traditions,” at the University of Kentucky, Lexington in 2022, and her solo exhibitions “Into the Mountains” at the William King Museum of Art, and “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” at Bloomfield Richwood in 2025. In 2024, her curated show, “Layers of Liberty: Philadelphia and the Appalachian Environment,” opened at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the first exhibition highlighting the Appalachian region historically on a national scale.
As a scholar, curator, and painter, Printz’s work addresses Appalachian culture and its multilayered environmental histories and mixes elements of craft, throw away culture, and technology in combination with historic photographic sources. She received both a BA in art history and a BFA in painting from West Virginia University in 2009 and an MA from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York in 2012. She received her PhD in art history from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia in 2024. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and in various venues throughout the Appalachian region. Her recent projects include “Appalachian Extraction” with CrikHoller collaborator Ernie Roby-Tomic, and the public mural, “Carrie Williams: Saint of Coketon” at Buxton and Landstreet Gallery in West Virginia in 2020, inclusion in the group exhibition “Women’s Work: Redefining Appalachian Traditions,” at the University of Kentucky, Lexington in 2022, and her solo exhibitions “Into the Mountains” at the William King Museum of Art, and “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” at Bloomfield Richwood in 2025. In 2024, her curated show, “Layers of Liberty: Philadelphia and the Appalachian Environment,” opened at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the first exhibition highlighting the Appalachian region historically on a national scale.