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Alicia Sampson Ethridge is an artist living in Coastal Maine and a founding member of Seven Artists Collective. Ethridge works primarily in oil and mixed media collage. Her practice is influenced by a personal spirituality practice, myth, dreams, nature and motherhood. 

She recently had a solo show installed at the Rochester Museum of Fine Art. This exhibition was recently reviewed in Artscope Magazine by Linda Chestney who said, “The Birds and the Herds works are vibrant, audacious, uninhibited and electrifying. Ethridge tends to blend figurative art and abstraction with great success. Her work makes a statement that can’t be ignored.”

Ethridge’s regional group exhibitions include, the George Marshall Store Gallery (York, ME), the Maine Art Gallery (Wiscasset, ME), the Crows Nest (Peaks Island, ME), the Gallery at Readfield, (Readfield, ME), the Center for Maine Contemporary Art ( Rockland, ME), New Systems Exhibitions (Portland, ME), Katzman Contemporary (Dover, NH), Harlow Gallery, (Hallowell, ME), Stonewall Gallery, (Yarmouth, ME), Buoy, (Kittery, ME) and Zero Station, (Portland, ME). 

Taking a deeper look into Ethridge’’s practice, her upbringing in an artistic family in Northern, NJ means that she understood from an early age the fluid relationship between art and lived experience. In a review of her three person show Our Beasts, in the Portland Press Herald, Jorge Arango said, “A congenital heart condition necessitated a heart transplant for Alicia Ethridge’s son when he was just 18 months old. Ethridge’s work, dense, colorful and jumbled chaotically (intentionally I believe, to mirror the tumult of emotions of the situation) often show him being shielded from danger or protected in some other way. In Snake Pit, what separates him from the writhing reptiles is an enormous red hand..Mothership feels quieter. In it, Ethridge wears peace sign earrings and is flanked by a pair of does–symbols of family, gentleness and calm.” Ethridge’s artwork expands beyond the canvas and her life experiences flow into her artwork.

After completing an MSW in Expressive Therapies, Ethridge studied at Maine College of Art in the Continuing Studies Program. During this time Ethridge co-founded Seven Artists Collective, which is gaining regional attention. Their exhibition Collective Imagination at Maine Art Gallery was recently reviewed in Art New England by Carl Little. He describes Ethridge’s work, “Elsewhere, horses emerge from abstracted realms in several of Ethridge’s paintings. While Epona I and Epona II recall some of Susan Rothenberg’s equine images, they are more complex and colorful.”

Another example of Ethridge’s ability to fuse life and art is her decade long study of art monasticism. Through contemplative art techniques such as Lectio Divina, Pantoum, and embodying dream characters Ethridge has found that art and prayer have much in common - both are rooted in an intense encounter involving a surrender of willfulness, openness to inspiration and lead to a deep engagement with mystery.