Produced in collaboration with the artist and the FWM Studio, this new edition is available through pre-order exclusively through the FWM Store.
Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 2025—The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) is pleased to announce Talisman of the Middle Air, an edition of fabric banners by FWM Artist-in-Residence Lisa Alvarado produced on the occasion of her solo exhibition, Talismans for a Theater of Resilience. Hand-printed and sewn with a light-filtering silk organza center, this limited-edition banner incorporates the artist’s experiments with screenprinting on fabric during her FWM residency in 2025. Produced in an edition of 5 (with 3 Artist Proofs), Talisman of the Middle Air is available in two colorways: “inhale pink” and “exhale green.” The artwork is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity hand-signed and dated by the artist. It will retail for $5,000.00 and is available for pre-order at the FWM Store.
“This double-sided edition interacts with air, breath, and the atmosphere of space,” said Alvarado. “For me, talismans are objects that aid in protection, guidance and alignment, enacted through forms of concentration, music or meditation. They are visual reminders of the pulsating cycles of change.”
The Chicago-based artist and musician is known for her large scale free-hanging paintings that function as both artworks and mobile stage sets for musical performances. Working across painting, textiles, and performance, Lisa Alvarado explores liminality—or in-betweenness—as a generative space where rhythm, movement, and history intertwine. Guided by what she calls “vibrational aesthetics,” the artist draws from bodily pulses and earthly cycles alike, creating multi-sensory works rich with visual and sonic resonance.
In her solo FWM exhibition, Talismans for a Theater of Resilience (September 25, 2025–April 12, 2026), Alvarado considers different facets of time, from personal experiences to deep, geological evolution. During her residency, Alvarado experimented with sculptural fabric assemblage, screenprinting, dyeing techniques, and window gels. The results are two monumental hanging tapestries, which are presented in conversation with tinted windows and a series of kinetic sound sculptures.
Talisman of the Middle Air advances Alvarado’s experiments with the silkscreen process and use of light as a medium in her work. Collaged parallelograms form overlapping diamonds, each shape interrupting the next with a colorful wave motif. Here, the artist echoes imagery from earlier paintings, translated as a four-color screenprint using yellow, magenta, teal, and sage green. Sheer organza provides both structure and translucency, inviting both “inhale pink” and “exhale green” tinted light to each work. The edition’s colorway is identified by the silk hand-sewn within its central diamond; each employs the alternating color of fabric to suspend the piece from the dowel. The verso of each edition features a hand-painted wash of pigment brushed by the artist onto cotton fabric, ensuring that no two editions are alike.
About Lisa Alvarado
American, born 1982, San Antonio, TX. Lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Lisa Alvarado is a visual artist and musician that bridges vibrational forms and reimagines collective space. She works with painting, wall murals, light, sand, sound and musical performance, creating works that engage with abstraction as an ancient and global tradition that precedes European modernism. Her pulsating works draw on her Mexican American perspective as well as her interests in vibration and the cyclic rhythms within music, nature, and the body. Alvarado plays harmonium in the band Natural Information Society and uses her free-hanging paintings as mobile stage sets in their performances. Her work has been shown at the Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; The Kitchen, New York, NY; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA; The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Hartford, CT; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; MOCA, Jacksonville, FL; REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA; Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, TX; Marfa Ballroom, TX; Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; and Kunsthalle Münster, Germany; among others. She has performed at the Pitchfork Music Festival, Chicago, IL; Inhotim Museum, Brazil; Le Guess Who Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Pioneer Works, New York, NY; Palais De Tokyo, Paris, France; and Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal, among others. Alvarado has recorded on albums released on Eremite, Drag City, and Aguirre Records. Her work is represented by Hoffman Donahue in New York and The Modern Institute in Glasgow.
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