Sarah Alexander
Curriculum Vitae
Select Publications
International Painting Annual, 5th volume: Works of Recent Contemporary Painting, Manifest Press.
Exhibitions
Material Systems Artist Statement
This body of work is an exploration of nature as subject matter. The work stems from my own experiences as well as research in the areas of the Romantic sublime and Chinese landscape painting. Nature's processes serve as a metaphor for an unrelenting, uncontrollable force, bringing into question notions of will and chance. Gravity, erosion, pressure, and flow become important actions in the making of this work, ultimately serving as opposition to human will. The work evolves through a process of chance and response, an act of letting go becomes symbolic of the need for recognizing that control is only gained when there is a willingness to abandon it. This struggle, born of experience, is revealed in the marred, sanded surface, which becomes an artifact of those forces which formed it. The spaces that develop serve as an expanse through which the viewer may wander. The oppositional union of textured surfaces and illusionistic space becomes a way to use the physical as a bridge to the immaterial. The mystery involved in the study of nature serves as a way of looking and recognizing order and pattern in a seemingly random universe. It is through this study - viewing the macrocosmic within the microcosmic -that I connect with and experience the complexities of nature, recognizing that infinitude is within the minutiae.
Artist Bio
Sarah Alexander received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design and her Masters of Fine Arts Degree in painting and drawing from the University of Florida. She has participated in many group exhibitions in Florida and Georgia. Sarah Alexander is an instructor at Flagler College, St. Augustine and Florida School of Arts in Palatka where she is currently the Gallery Director.