Arica Hilton, multidisciplinary artist, poet, curator, designer, explorer and global advocate, was born in Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. She was raised in the United States since the age of six.

A former president of the Poetry Center of Chicago, Hilton’s love of history, mythology, philosophy, and science, attempts to explore states of love through the various dimensions of space and time, much like a physicist delving into theories about the inception of life through her paintings and poetry with references alluding to Neruda, Rilke, Rumi and her ancestor, Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi.

Based in Chicago, Hilton is the director and curator of Hilton | Asmus Contemporary, a gallery platform she leverages to support internationally known artists who seek change in the world.

Whether she is hiking the Himalayas or cage diving with great white sharks, Hilton is driven to pursue first-hand encounters with people and their living environments through her expeditions.

In 2022, Arica received the Altin Ege Odulleri (Golden Aegean Award) in Izmir, Turkey, a special award for her creativity and support of the arts. In 2020, she was the lead artist-in-residence for Immersive Van Gogh Chicago where she created a series of paintings and poetry inspired by Vincent Van Gogh with an eco-conscious, contemporary twist; she was honored by global nonprofit Greenheart International as the 2019 Global Leader Honoree for her work as artist, curator and youth empowerment champion joining the ranks of Nobel Prize winning recipients and nominees.

With exhibitions in Europe, Asia, the United States and the Middle East, her series, “I Flow Like Water,” was shown at QU ART in Brussels; the Union League Club of Chicago; Beirut Art Fair; Initiatives of Change: Caux Forum for Just Governance and Human Security, Caux, Switzerland; Ocean Geographic’s Elysium Artists for the Coral Triangle in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, China. Her most recent exhibition, TIDES: A Prelude, emphasizes NATURE as the driving force by exploring the spectrum of color, shape and frequency of sound.

Hilton’s works have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers such as Ocean Geographic Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Turkuaz Magazine, WomanScape Magazine, Medium, Authority Magazine, Izmir Gazetesi among others.

Her upcoming book of poetry, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT WINDS will be published in the spring of 2023 by Nobel nominated poet Adonis, considered the most important poet of the Arab world.