The artistic journey of Ali Hval is one of cultural awakening as well as pure circumstance.

“A lot of my work is sort of a journey of me coming from Alabama up to the Midwest,” Hval reflects. “There’s a very different feeling growing up in Alabama, as a woman, compared to maturing in Iowa as woman.”

Hval earned her MFA from the University of Iowa in Painting and Drawing with honors in 2019, and BFA in Painting from the University of Alabama with honors. Since then, she has continued exploring provocative themes influenced by her journey to the Hawkeye State and inspired by femininity, excess, and how to challenge the “relentless critique and politicization of the body.” Her ceramic and fabric-based works are often bedazzled with rhinestones and resemble giant pieces of jewelry, pairs of shoes, or keys.

“When I moved to Iowa, I had a whole new idea of what I could be. And I was kind of expanding my own thought: Who am I supposed to be? How can I grow up? What parts of me am I allowed to show?,” she observes. “I started thinking about my work as that, too, and I think my work really steps this line of things that are very feminine and delicate but also maybe a little more sexual in nature.”

Hval’s signature style has been featured in galleries across the U.S., with her proudest milestone as of late being a citation in The New Yorker. Last summer, she and three other artists were featured in a New York City show entitled The Ecstasy of Saint Britney, with her work being described by art critic Johanna Fateman as combining “the accoutrements of B.D.S.M. with Barbie Dreamhouse décor. Like the exhibition as a whole, Hval’s bejeweled pieces strike a savvy balance of sugar and spice, forgoing the nice.”

“It was celebrating the decorative and the pink and the feminine, which is something that most people look at and see as very excessive,” Hval says. “So it was really interesting to see us going back to this place where we’re celebrating these things that are overly decorative, kind of like the Palace of Versailles and Hall of Mirrors.”

Hval has also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Painting and Drawing at the University of Iowa. She has received grants from the Iowa Arts Council as well as the Windgate Fellowship by the Center of Craft, Creativity, and Design in Asheville, North Carolina.

An accidental career in public art

In addition to her signature ceramic and installation art, Hval has assumed a lucrative career as a muralist.

“It was a complete accident to start painting murals,” she admits with a laugh.

After a friend in Hval’s cohort asked for her help in painting a mural, the friend found herself unable to commit to the task and relinquished the entire project to an uninitiated Hval.

“It was sort of terrifying but also really exciting to think about a new space to create my work in, and it’s really helped me in the studio, as well, to think about scale,” the artist cites. “Every project that I encounter gives me a new perspective on my work in the studio.”

Hval embraced the newfound career path and not long after graduation found herself painting some of the most well-recognized public art of the Corridor. Her Iowa City credits include El Ray’s spindly “live music” sign, vibrantly geometric picnic tables, and the rainbowed entrance to Studio 13, which has become a neon beacon of Iowa City’s nightlife scene.

Heading through the Cedar Rapids Czech Village, commuters are treated to a vast painting inspired by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha. It centers around an Art Nouveau-style woman and incorporates Iowan elements like bike wheels, a gold finch, tomatoes, and corn. Hval also created a broad mural on Green Square Park, celebrating the American Discovery Trail upon which it resides. Last summer, she could be seen under the sweltering sun, painting an exuberant, lattice-adorned “Choose Kindness” mural near the UnityPoint Saint Luke's Hospital Campus.

“I usually work with a community, see what interests them, and how I can bring something that they’re really proud of to the forefront of their community through a mural,” Hval explains.

The young artist has already completed over 30 public murals and projects in communities across the U.S., sometimes painting them piece by piece in her driveway or basement before assembling them on site.

Finding success in the arts

Hval is grateful for her experiences at the University of Iowa, citing her small, tight-knit cohort and immersive faculty who would invite students into their homes.

“I felt like I had a really good one-on-one experience with a lot of my faculty members,” she notes. “There was a really great community that was being built there.”

Hval also cites the Office of Outreach and Engagement (now part of the Office of Community Engagement) as instrumental in finding her career in public art, and she hopes to inspire other art students to find a path to success in the creative field.

“If there’s one takeaway I have from going to the University of Iowa, it’s that you can have a career in the arts, and you can be successful, and you can make money,” Hval concludes. “So the idea of the starving artist is fading away, which I think is really positive.”