Alicia Dawn Criswell

Alicia Dawn Criswell is an artist, Board-Certified Art Therapist, and art therapy educator originally from Crown Point, IN. After earning her BFA and Spanish minor from Saint Mary’s College of Notre Dame in 2005, Alicia taught children and adult classes in mixed media, painting, sculpture, paper and book-making in after school programs and community centers.  She also worked in High School special education as a behavior facilitator. She returned to school in 2009 to earn her MA in Counseling Psychology: Art Therapy from Adler University in Chicago.  Since 2011, Alicia has worked as a therapist in schools as well as inpatient and outpatient settings. Her areas of interest include grief and the development of creativity and meaning, with a clinical focus in leading groups for adults with dual diagnosis. For the past five years, she has worked as an associate faculty member for Herron School of Art + Design’s Art Therapy graduate program. Exhibiting her work regionally since 2002, her paintings and mixed media works explore the themes of loss, beauty, and memory. Alicia finds inspiration from her work as a therapist, her childhood, as well as her grandmother’s experience with Alzheimer's disease.  Her experiences have guided her exploration of the figurative and literal barriers that we impose upon ourselves, as well as the stigmas that are thrust upon us by others. Alicia attempts to make artwork that transcends the limitations of memory and mental health stigma. Alicia’s work reveals her personal history, acting as a timeline recording the people, places, and things she has encountered, forgotten, and remembered.

Alicia’s most recent achievements include being awarded Best of Show at the IN Artists Club Annual Members Exhibition, first at the Indiana Landmarks Center in Indianapolis, IN in 2022, and again at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Fort Wayne, IN in 2023.  Other awards include the Quinquagenary Grand Prize in Painting from the 78th Annual Wabash Valley Exhibition at Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, IN in 2022, and the Past Presidents’ Award from the South Shore Arts 77th Annual Salon Show in Munster, IN in 2020.  She has been recognized as a Hoosier Women Artists Honoree from the Office of Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch in 2019 and from the Office of Treasurer of State Kelly Mitchell in 2022 at the Indiana Statehouse.  In 2019, she was recipient of an On-Ramp Fellowship Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission.  She is also a Signature Artist Member of the Hoosier Salon.