Statement

Tracy von Ahsen’s work moves through the architecture of identity, presence, and choice. Her analog collages, built from familiar symbols like chairs, curtains, and fashion relics, shape spaces where selfhood feels fluid and mythic. These images are not static scenes. They are psychic rooms, layered with memory, intuition, and the quiet pressure to shift into a truer version of oneself.

Working with the immediacy of hand-cut collage, von Ahsen filters fashion culture, nostalgia, and pop imagery through a deeply intuitive process. Her feminine figures step beyond personality into a kind of raw presence. They are not faceless so much as suspended in the moment before choosing who they will be. She draws from her own history, including New York City’s friction and freedom, spiritual study in India and Peru, and early lessons in survival on Long Island. The result is a visual language that feels dreamlike, cinematic, and emotionally charged.

At the center of her practice is a simple question. What part of the life we inherit do we keep, and what part do we cut apart and rebuild into something more authentic.

Each collage becomes a portal into a constructed reality where transformation is no longer symbolic. It is the material itself.

Bio

Tracy von Ahsen (b. 1981, Long Island, NY) is a New York City–based artist whose work collages presence, memory, and self-reinvention. After earning a photography degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and living at the iconic Chelsea Hotel, she transitioned from photography to analog collage — cutting, layering, and reimagining symbols of identity, femininity, and spirituality.

Von Ahsen’s work is shaped by personal transformation: her navigation through queer identity, and spiritual awakening. Her studies with monks in India, ceremonies in Peru’s Sacred Valley, and years immersed in New York’s downtown art scene form the undercurrent of her practice.

Fusing pop culture, vintage aesthetics, and mystical storytelling, her pieces channel the surreal textures of city life, while inviting a quieter dialogue about the nature of reality and personal myth making.

She has exhibited work in NYC at Amos Eno Gallery, Van Der Plas Gallery the Leslie-Lohman Museum, and Prince Street Project Space. She continues to create from her studio in the East Village.