Heavily inspired by the tourism and performing arts that surrounded her in Orlando throughout her childhood, Ally Rae Peeples explores the ways in which we filter our realities in her oil paintings. Her distorted figures resemble the caricatures that are an integral part to amusement park culture both visually and conceptually in the way that she is using her art process to spend time making observations about strangers.

Though Ally’s inspiration is derived from tourists and the bizarre space they inhabit, she too is a recent LA transplant. Photographing her in the context of quintessential LA tourist traps portrays her as one of the people she’s observing, revealing her art as not just an exploration of her environment, but also as an exploration of self.