Award-winning artist Alexandra Gallagher is a British multidisciplinary artist, who’s work takes the form of collage, street art, prints, photography and painting. Gallagher’s work celebrates the surreal and sublime. Between the realms of memory, dreams and experience, her work looks beyond our subjective limits and often tells a story of inner imagination and thought. Often working within a series, each piece is visceral and organic, the artist never knowing how each piece will transform.
Exhibiting and selling both across the country and internationally, she has been nominated for a number of awards. Shortlisted for the Zealous X, she was awarded the Saatchi Showdown Surrealism Second Place Winner and the Secret Art Prize Runner Up Winner 2016. Her recent achievements include being a London Contemporary Art Prize 2018 Finalist and being shortlisted for the Rise Art Prize.
“If New York’s Lower East Side went Rococo, it’d manifest as Alexandra Gallagher’s sleek, trippy, succulent collages. The British artist wields Photoshop like a technicolour sword, slashing up images of flora and fauna into compositions framing subjects sylvan as Kate Moss with backgrounds evoking equal parts zodiac and mod design. Flamingos worthy of Miami gardens cavort alongside landscapes worthy of Kurt Vonnegut, but both share Gallagher’s common touch of the metallic, the lucid, and the unabashedly chic. It’s Leda and the Swan meets punk rock, which is perhaps why Gallagher lists Artemisia Gentileschi as an influence, despite the seeming gap between their works. “The inspiration behind my work is our experiences as women in western society … but I didn’t want to put something out there that’s obvious or brutal, I wanted to create something beautiful out of something ugly, but still give a voice,” Gallagher says. Her myriad layers of symbolism, feathers and faded limbs produce synesthesia of both synthesizers and harpsichords worthy of Artemisia’s admiration – from one woman who wielded formidable swords to another” Lauren Amalia Redding.
Self-taught or art school?
Mostly self-taught
If you could own one work of art what would it be?
Oh wow… That’s so tough! Really just one piece? I can’t!
How would you describe your style?
Surreal, art Nouveau mash-up.
Can you tell us about your artistic process?
Each piece starts off as a collage using found imagery, even if it becomes a painting, I start by sketching it out in photoshop using collage. None of my pieces are planned but are organically created from the subconscious.
Is narrative important within your work?
In some of my work there is a strong female narrative that is told through symbolism. Working from what it’s like to be a female in western society. I like to make our traumas into something beautiful, to take back the control so to speak. I also like to create pieces that are about our connection as a whole, with nature, the planet, each other, the universe, spirituality. Again these are created through symbolism.
Who are your favourite artist and why?
There are so many artists that I absolutely love, from so many different genres, I’d be here all day sharing them, but one of my favourites would be Jenny Saville. Some others would be Henrik Uldalen, Artemisa Gentileschi, and I’ve recently fallen in love with the work of Robert Sample, who I came across last year and thought how have I not seen his work before!?
What or who inspires your art?
I seem to be one of those people that absorbs everything around me, from pop culture to history, politics, philosophy and science. It all contributes to the work I do and as my work comes more from a place of the subconscious, its plays a part. I could be going through something personally and that will come out in my work, or I could have seen something online or something someone has said to me. Sometimes it’s as simple as seeing a photo of someone and I’m like yes! I have to create something with that – kind of like an impulsive drive.
Where’s your studio and what’s it like?
I’m currently packing up my old studio and building a garden one. I’m very excited about it, but there’s a lot of work to do, and due to lockdowns it’s made it very tricky to get to my old studio anyway, so currently I’m just creating chaos in my home with art everywhere, prints, unfinished things, paint, postal tubes and samples etc.
Do you have any studio rituals?
Before lockdown and having family around all the time, I was very much grabbing my morning coffee and just starting, working like I would if I had a nine to five, although with what I do it’s more of a nine to nine or if I have a big commission with deadlines, it can often be long stretches of all-nighters. I’ve also learnt from when my children were young and have gone back to this way of working while in lockdown, that you’ve got to be flexible – so say when I’m cooking tea, I’m also painting or nipping back to the computer to do a little extra on a piece while something is boiling. I could be having a bath and sending emails, I’ve set my life up so it’s very fluid and means that I can give my family ( especially as I’m a mum of two autistic daughters ) everything they need at the same time as getting what I need to do done.
To view more work visit Leonita Gallery
