Alissa Zilber’s paintings distill the pulse of nightlife and the fleeting rhythm of crowds, where movement and transient encounters shape the composition. Straddling the line between abstraction and figuration, her work captures sensory impressions rather than literal forms. "Streakers" marks a shift in her process, embracing raw spontaneity, while "Puncture" and "Luge" delve into the charged dynamics of mosh pits and shared space. Experimenting with materials like mylar, she heightens the tension between presence and disappearance, crafting images that feel both immediate and atmospheric.
Q: Your work explores the intersection of spatial and emotional realms. How did this approach to capturing connection and estrangement develop in your art?
A: When I first began honing my practice, I was reading a lot of existential literature and thinking about how emotions—especially existential dread—manifest physically in the body: how people carry them in their posture and in the way they move through everyday spaces. Then I started thinking about what that looks like in nightlife. Shows, parties, and raves are full of striking contradictions in behaviour—some people go out alone just to be surrounded by strangers, while others feel an immediate sense of belonging in a crowd. These spaces strip away certain social norms, making room for self-expression in ways that feel both deeply personal and inherently collective. I became interested in painting the in-between moments—the way people reach for connection but sometimes pull back, caught between the desire to be close to others and the fear of being exposed or rejected. That led me to reconsider my approach to painting.
I began experimenting with ways to build up and break down the drawing and painting surface, emulating the way these spaces fill up and empty out over the course of a night. I discovered that crowds have an ebb and flow that lends itself to abstraction and erasure, and I’ve been exploring that ever since.
Q: "Streakers" marks a shift in your process, moving from a more methodical approach to one driven by lived experiences. How has this change influenced your creative work since?
A: It’s loosened me up a lot. I used to approach painting in a really structured way—coming up with ideas, sketching compositions, then shooting reference photos to work from. But over time, I started getting more ideas from spontaneous moments in my life and became more comfortable drawing from them. "STREAKERS" happened by accident. I was in Halifax visiting a friend who threw a party one night, and a conversation about streaking suddenly turned into three of our friends stripping down and bolting down the street. The rest of us watched from the second-floor balcony, and I managed to snap a photo of them running on my point-and-shoot. When I finally developed the film months later, that photo jumped out at me—I knew I had to paint it. At shows, I became more attuned to the atmosphere—how the crowd moved, how light and colour shaped the space. What did it feel like to be there at that moment? That shift made me want to move away from working from photos entirely.
Observational drawing has a liveliness that photography doesn’t, at least for the work I’m trying to make. It forces me to work quickly, to distill the movement and energy of a space into immediate marks. That shift has also made me more conscious of materiality, pushing me to explore new ways to express movement and energy through paint.
Q: Your paintings often depict moments in crowded settings like mosh pits. What draws you to explore these intense, chaotic environments, and how do you capture their energy?
A: Mosh pits are compelling to me both visually and psychologically. On a formal level, they’re dynamic—loud music, bodies colliding, sweat, and momentum.
But there’s also an element of escapism. People react to the music, let go of their inhibitions, and physically express themselves together. The compositions are constantly rearranging, which makes them exciting to paint. Beyond that, mosh pits and the spaces that foster them hold a deeper significance. Different subcultures define the energy of each mosh pit, and I’m interested in their social function—how they’re transient yet deeply affecting, ephemeral yet foundational to a sense of belonging. And they’re also just really, really fun. At first, drawing in these environments felt daunting. I worried about standing out or disrupting the moment. But I wanted to capture the real thing, not just reconstruct it from memory or photos. So, I started bringing my sketchbook to bars and shows, mostly around Montréal and when I traveled.
While I’m still working toward fully drawing on-site, I’ll take videos to recall the atmosphere later—but I push myself to rely more on sketches. Some stay as raw studies, while others evolve into larger drawings and paintings.
Q: "Puncture" was inspired by a specific moment in London. How do you balance capturing the rawness of these fleeting moments with your abstract approach to painting?
A: The erratic movement and dark lighting at shows make them incredibly sensory experiences, and abstraction helps me communicate that. I’ve always been drawn to work that balances representation and abstraction—whether in painting, film, or music—and I think about that tension a lot in my own practice. I don’t just want to depict what’s happening physically, but also what it feels like.
Emotions are intangible—they don’t take up space the way objects do but manifest in our faces, bodies, and actions. I think that’s why I turn to abstraction, in addition to figuration, to express them. For me, abstraction comes through mark-making, colour, and composition.
A single gesture can suggest movement or stillness, and erasure can imply bodies coming and going. Early on, I became obsessed with colour—not just depicting it, but distorting it, using colour the way theatre lights use gels to shift mood and atmosphere. Composition plays a big role too. When I start a piece, I ask myself: What’s the best visual way to tell this story? Should the perspective be from above or below? What am I including, and what am I obscuring—and why? I’ll sketch out the idea for the painting in as many different ways as possible until something clicks.
Q: The materiality of your work seems to play an important role, especially with the use of mylar. How does working with materials like mylar impact the way you create and convey motion in your paintings?
A: Finding the right materials to express an idea takes time. After years of experimenting with different mediums, I found my stride painting with acrylic on watercolour paper. But when I began developing this new body of work, I wanted to challenge myself and reconsider my materials. That’s when I revisited mylar. Mylar is a translucent polyester film, and unlike paper or canvas, it doesn’t absorb paint—it just sits on the surface, giving the piece a wet, suspended quality. Since it takes longer to dry, I can manipulate it in a way that mirrors the erratic movement of a crowd—pushing, scraping, and smearing. It took some adjusting, but I love how it forces me to work differently and how fluid it feels.
It feels fitting to work quickly when drawing or painting something as spontaneous as a crowded dance floor or mosh pit. I’ve also found a great pairing using charcoal on watercolour paper.
Charcoal is incredibly malleable in a completely different way—you can get really precise with it, but also smudge and erase into it, subtly shifting marks or making bold, sweeping gestures. I love drawing as its own endpoint, not just a step toward painting. I want to keep exploring charcoal and pushing the idea of erasure to find new ways of capturing the ebb and flow of a room.
Q: The idea of intimacy versus anonymity in crowds is central to your series on mosh pits. What do you find most compelling about this tension, and how do you translate it into your art?
A: Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about solidarity—what forms it takes in ways we might overlook. What does real solidarity and care look like nowadays, especially in an increasingly fragmented world? Dance floors and venues create a transcendental connection between strangers, fostering a real sense of people taking care of each other. That tension between intimacy and anonymity fascinates me. You’re moving, pushing, crashing into strangers—but also holding each other up, making space, responding to each other’s bodies. It’s chaotic, but there’s an unspoken solidarity that I find beautiful. I try to capture that push and pull in my paintings—figures merging and dissolving, blurred boundaries between bodies, darkness obscuring details. Clubs and venues thrive in low light, where outlines soften into sensation.
I like playing with that ambiguity visually, allowing forms to emerge and recede, balancing presence and absence.
Q: As you continue to explore crowds and nightlife, are there new directions or concepts you're excited to pursue in your future work?
A: I’m just getting started! I want to keep pushing my methodology around erasure with charcoal and mylar, and I want to work bigger. If I can find the space and means, I’d love to paint life-sized mosh pits and crowds, capturing those spaces at scale. I’m also hoping to take this work beyond Montréal. Last year, I spent a month in London, going to as many shows as I could. The music scene there is incredible—I discovered so many tight-knit yet inclusive communities and was struck by a real sense that everyone is experimenting. I filled a sketchbook with drawings that I want to turn into something—I’m not quite sure what yet. Beyond drawing and painting, I’ve been trying out sound and film.
It started as a happy accident—I tried sequencing some of my charcoal drawings and found this fluid movement when I used them as film frames, layering them with rough iPhone recordings to create a soundscape. That got me thinking about how drawing and film could work together to capture the sensory experience of being in a crowd in a more immersive way. One of my best friends, who makes brilliant electronic and techno music under the name CARUNCKEL, has generously let me use some of his music for this. It’s still in its early stages, but I’m hoping to bring in a few other friends to score the final piece. We’ll see where it goes, but I’m really excited to sink my teeth into this project over the next year.